The Dark Is Cold
by Celebriangel
Summary: HPDM, AU to HBP. No one can talk to Harry Potter, and no one knows Draco Malfoy, but when they discover they have more in common than they thought, their friendship makes their separate struggles easier to bear. Until someone tries to split them apart...
1. Know Thine Enemy

The Dark Is Cold

Chapter One – _Know Thine Enemy_

Harry

Sirius is dead, and I as good as killed him. Anyone and everyone can tell me that over and over that it wasn't my fault, but I can see they don't believe a word of it. They need someone to blame, and it might as well be me, seeing as it was my idea in the fist place. Even if it's only in their minds. Maybe that's worse, somehow.

Especially when it's Ron and Hermione. I wish they'd decide on their opinion: support me or blame me. But they linger somewhere in between, cautiously polite, sidestepping the issue. I need them more than ever now, but it's my fault they aren't here. I pushed them away, safe, and now they don't have to deal with this mess. This mess that is all I am now.

I don't feel anything much. Quidditch isn't fun anymore, but an unwanted reminder of how thing used to be. I don't live life: just watch it, like a muggle video. People are dying, and I witnessed the deaths of two of them. It's hard to worry about essays or house points when they seem so trivial. Nothing makes sense anymore, and I don't care.

Malfoy doesn't matter. He isn't my nemesis, my best enemy. I can't feel hate for him like I used to, but then, I can't feel anything. Except a desire for vengeance, against he who took my parents and she who took Sirius. What is it they say, 'revenge is a dish best served cold'? Well, I'm cold. So cold that my heart has frozen even as I stare at ice I can feel on my fingers, which isn't really there.

I haven't spoken for days, nor had a conversation in weeks. There are things I'd rather keep to myself; layers of thoughts best kept hidden. And I'll conceal them, and maybe one day I'll face the world again. Like I ever could. And so, I probably won't.

Hermione

I can't remember the last time I talked to harry. He isn't talking to anyone, I don't think. He doesn't do his homework, or say anything in class, or even care about the points he loses because of it. He never responds if someone says something to him. The last phrase I recall him saying was 'fuck off'. It broke Ron's heart the day Harry said that to him. That's what he's all about now. His whole demeanour is always telling people to go away, 'cause I don't need you'.

But that's the thing, because he does need someone. Someone who doesn't hold with all the Boy-Who-Lived rubbish; he hates that. Everyone wants the Boy-Who-Lived to be a saviour, but he can't save everyone, and he hates himself for it. I understand that, and Ron does too, on some level. Ron and I could give him that, and everything would be all right again. The three of us, the trio, the dream team, best friends…wishful thinking, Hermione. Well here's some more: I wish it was that simple.

I know I'm missing something. Harry's dark, no other word for it – he broods, and sometimes I see anger or hate in his eyes, so strong it is frightening. Beyond that, he is a mystery to me, my best friend. I, Hermione Granger, have failed. I cannot help a best friend: none of the knowledge I have, about spells, or potions, or magic, can help now.

I should say I will not give up. But I cannot see a way forward, or even a chance, a hope, _something_ I could do or try, and it frustrates me. Harry does not want my help, and even I can see I am of little use, so the best I can do is leave him alone. Leave him alone, and hope he can deal with something I cannot possibly understand.

Ron despairs at me. I said, all we can do is wait and hope, and let him know we are there. I told Ron that we would be there for Harry when it is over and everything is back to normal. What have I become, to lie to my best friend? Because I don't know if everything _can_ go back to normal, if there is even a chance that Harry will come back to us. Maybe we have lost him forever, maybe not. The fault is mine, because I cannot help my best friend. And I have no right to fail a friend.

Draco

Potter's been strange this year. Sometimes I try to act like nothing's changed: like he's still the ever-noble Gryffindor against me, the Badass Slytherin. But, I don't think he hates me anymore. He's turned the tables on me, become darker that I ever was. He walks down empty halls alone and speaks to no one, his shadow-bound demeanour like a statue of ice, cold and hard. I haven't seen him at a meal for days, and he's never with Granger and Weasley. I see them sometimes, watching him, worrying about him, but I don't think he cares.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that it has something to do with Black's death. My father told me…that Black meant something to him.

"Sirius Black deserved what he got, you know," I announced to the deserted corridor. Well, deserted apart from Potter. His presence is like a ghost, and a sure sign there's nobody else for miles, so deserted it is.

He stopped, and turned around slowly. I'd spoken quietly, but I knew he'd heard me. Some people think he's lost to the world, just because he doesn't acknowledge anything they say or do, but I can see him watching and listening, sharp as he always was. He was angry now, for the first time in ages. Not red-faced with clenched fists like he used to be, when he did not bother to hide anything. Now he just stood, and fixed me with his cold stare, the same one that he's worn for weeks. It was his stance, the way he stood stock-still and silent, that was how I knew he was angry. I know him well - I watch, just like he does, and five years of trying to know my enemy has become a force of habit.

"What did you say?" His voice was hoarse, cracking from lack of use. Bloody hell, he really _hasn't_ spoken in weeks. We both knew what I'd said, but I said it again for good measure, and because we had to pretend that this was just another

Potter/Malfoy duel of words, like always, even though always is a dream of the distant past.

"You'd better take that back," he said, dangerously. It was a definite threat, but a cold, calm one, as if he was just informing me of a fact. It almost was a fact: I knew there would be trouble if I didn't take it back. Trouble was what I wanted. He walked towards me, and suddenly I noticed that the movement was noiseless and lithe, qualities that I knew he hadn't possessed before.

"Why?" I said. "No, I meant it. What, have I struck a nerve?" I hoped so. But his next reaction was fast, and so unlike him. He hasn't got angry at me (or anyone for that matter) in ages, so I didn't expect him to hit me. Especially not that hard. It _hurt_. He had grown; with all his lurking in the shadows I hadn't noticed, but grown he had. He stood taller than I did, stronger, and older than I remember. I thought there might be a reason why he looked older.

"Your father was there, Malfoy. At the Ministry when Sirius was killed." His voice cracked a little.

"But it was Bellatrix who…" Shit. I'm…not supposed to know that.

"Yes, Bellatrix Lestrange, formerly Bellatrix Black. Sirius' cousin as well as his murderer, and your mother's sister. Tortured Neville too. Though it was Dolohov who cursed Hermione. I suppose Bellatrix had done enough damage." He spat. He hit me again, while I was still trying to get my head round what he'd said. That's not fair, that's a _Slytherin_ thing. But I got up and hit him back, in the mouth. His lip started bleeding, and he seemed surprised. Then he ran towards me and picked me up, raining blows. I struggled, and got in an uppercut and a blow to his stomach, but he didn't seem to feel it, though I could see blood on him. He fought, almost without looking at me, like it was someone else he was trying to fight. 'My fucking fault,' he said, perhaps unintentionally. I was bewildered, and I tried to read him. I thought I saw…guilt, for a second, before it passed as quickly as it had come. Then I realised _exactly_ what he meant.

"Holy fuck," Did I say that? Or just think it?

There was a strange look in his eyes, a kind of intense, merciless hatred that was beyond any I ever felt. I got the feeling that it wasn't for me.

I tasted blood, and it filled my mouth. I hit him again, and blood trickled from his nose, but he just wiped it away, as if he could feel no pain or felt too much already.

My worldview went from fuzzy red to grey, and I knew he had dropped me.

"Tell your Aunt Bella that I'm going to get her back for what she did to Sirius. Tell her that this time, I can cast the Cruciatus curse."

I never told them who it was, and god knows I deserved it anyway. But I couldn't imagine what had turned him like that. And I got the feeling I had only scratched the surface of his darkness.

Ron

A lot of the time I wonder where my best friend went. I wondered, and asked Hermione, but she knows little more than I do. She said that she didn't know what to do, and I know it upset her more than she would let on.

Harry's so distant, he hasn't spoken in weeks, and the last thing he said was 'fuck off'. And it was to a Gryffindor, maybe a friend, and not to somebody who deserved it, like Malfoy.

I don't think Harry hates Malfoy any more. Maybe he never really did, but now there's people he hates much more. Hates really bad, like that look he gets sometimes when he thinks no one can see, like he could cast an unforgivable. It was scary, that. That was when I knew I couldn't do anything. When I stopped believing in what Hermione said, that we'd be there for him when he came back. When I stopped believing that things could ever go back to normal.

That's like life, when something happens, or something changes, there's no going back, no erasing what happened. Once you're grown up, you're grown up for good. I look at Harry, and wonder if it's the same with a person; whether some things can leave scars that never go away.

A while ago, Harry suddenly changed the status quo. I was a minor shift, but it meant something. It meant there might be a way forward, even if there was no going back. He looked at me yesterday. Still with that cold stare he practised to cover everything so well, but it was a little different. It didn't say 'fuck off and leave me alone' so much as 'stay out of this'. I think it meant that he didn't want us to get involved, maybe for our own sakes. I think Hermione was a little right; that Harry could do best on his own, and he thinks so too.

I wondered what he was trying to protect us from. It was so like Harry to do that, but this time we wouldn't overrule him and come anyway, maybe this time we couldn't understand it anyway. Maybe I'm lucky I went crazy, that time at the ministry, cause it didn't leave so much of a mark on me. I don't know if I could've handled what Harry had to; but if there's anyone who can pull through, fight on and make it back, then it's Harry. I'm just gonna pray that when he does, he'll still be a little of the Harry we used to know.


	2. Speechless

Disclaimer: Not mine, apart from the plot. Which _is _mine. MINE, I tell you.

"Checks date" wow that was a fast update.

**Taintless**: "blushes" I'm flattered!

**xcrystaldreamzx**: Here's the update! Hope it wasn't too long a wait...and full marks for coherent comment complete with grammar and punctuation.

"waves to reviewers"

**

* * *

**

**The Dark Is Cold**

Chapter Two – _Speechless_

LUCIUS MALFOY IMPRISONED

So went the daily prophet heading one morning. Apparently, the ministry had conducted a raid on Malfoy Manor while Lucius was away on 'business'. They had found enough Dark Arts material to incarcerate Malfoy Senior in Azkaban for a very long time. Draco Malfoy was an instant…_celebrity_. The Slytherins laughed. They had been threatened with the wrath of Lucius Malfoy too much in the past, and no respect was now attached to that name. Malfoy had no true friends to standby him, and as such, the protection they had given him no longer existed. This was the Gryffindors' chance; their chance to get back at him, once and for all, to turn all the hurt he'd inflicted back on him. The other houses – Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw – were distant, and had the view that both Malfoy men had got what was coming to them, because everyone knew that those on the side of dark were always vanquished, and were always punished fittingly.

Harry was still aloof. Malfoy was slightly surprised, considering that Harry had always hated him, and with the recent incident…but the boy had given attention to nobody, so his distance was nothing unusual. Malfoy thought he saw a subtle change of some kind, just barely visible to one who looked carefully or knew him well. Like his hate and anger were no longer his poison, but his weapon. Harry put his energy into something else…the Dark Lord's demise.

To Malfoy's surprise, nothing came of the incident; no repeat, no conversation or more likely an insult or two, not even a vague acknowledgement. However, he suspected that he had been the one to draw the poison from Harry, to help get things to where they were supposed to be, or perhaps just a little closer. Malfoy brooded; he had much time for that now and perhaps the time alone did him good.

He brooded, and reflected that he and Potter…no, he and _Harry_ were not quite so different as he had thought. In some things they were absolute opposites, and in others they were exactly the same. They were two people, very similar, seeing the world with opposite views, simply because of what they had grown up believing. That sameness suddenly struck Malfoy, and perhaps he and Harry were not destined to be enemies after all. It was Harry who had turned the tables on him and forced him to see how similar they really were.

Now, they were just two souls, separated from everyone else, and perhaps thinking, and feeling, a few of the same things.

* * *

A lot of people wondered at Harry. Why wasn't he getting his revenge? A few even thought that it was _Malfoy_ who had forced Harry into his reclusive state. Nobody possessed the facts, or even a semblance of them. A select few Gryffindors thought they knew everything, but they could not get into Harry's mind and hear what he was thinking. Hermione wondered more than most, and faster than most. If anything, she thought Harry would've taken out all that anger on Malfoy. She had smirked somewhat nastily to herself thinking this. _Who knew Malfoy could be good for something?_ She thought, ironically._ Bastard_. Perhaps she harboured more dislike toward him than she would like to acknowledge, but it was of little importance to her. 

Ron followed roughly the same train of thought as Hermione, except that he was perhaps more vocal in his thoughts. He disliked Malfoy even more than Hermione, who could keep a level head, whereas Ron was usually quick to anger. The whole of Gryffindor spent so much time thinking about Harry, while the boy either didn't notice it or ignored it, that they didn't look at Malfoy himself except how he supposedly related to Harry, and their twisted views were far removed from reality.

Malfoy defended himself half-heartedly, sometimes even giving no answer to the insults thrown at him, and he no longer strutted down the halls as though he owned the place. Quite the opposite: he went about his business silently, with his eyes to the ground. Bitter thoughts occupied his head, but he tried to bury them, knowing they would poison him from the inside out.

No one prowled the corridors enough at night to know that he would pace certain floors, restlessly. No one knew that he would sit in the eaves of a large window and stare out, and they wouldn't see a tear wash down his cold white face. It would have made little difference to most if they had known.

Harry had to laugh, cynical, mocking, like the old Draco Malfoy, and he could not laugh with humour or pleasure. Everyone was too busy watching him to see him properly, and he ignored their idle speculations. No one could have pulled his mind apart, not even Voldemort, and he would allow no one close enough to try. Occlumency had proved useful, and deeper study of it had revealed a darker side. Harry's eyes were windows into a permanent coldness, and looking into them you would see no evidence of a once warm soul. It was power, Harry thought, to have nobody know what you are thinking. It makes control, of yourself and them, so much easier.

But he was still at war with himself, and hours around others would grate on him till he made his escape. Stalking the corridors almost every night, he seemed to need little sleep. He never saw Malfoy – it is curious how shortsighted being invisible makes one.

Harry almost ran out of the common room. He needed to be alone, to keep him sane – in school it was all right, because he could distance himself or get away altogether – but at weekends, he was forced to be in the thick of things all day, sometimes amongst people who expected a response. He didn't need the invisibility cloak anymore, but it was something of a comfort, and he cursed himself for not bringing it.

And stopped dead when he saw Malfoy, curled up and staring out of a window. There were tear-tracks down his cheek, and his pale, pointed face bore signs of acute insomnia. Harry sat down beside him.

"Fuck off, Potter," said Malfoy, curling farther into himself and away from Harry.

"You don't want to be near me, then fuck off yourself," said Harry, nonchalantly. A pause, and then,

"What are you doing here?"

"About the same thing you are, I suppose. Getting away from everyone who wants me to talk." said Harry. Malfoy was nonplussed, but he could tell Harry wasn't lying – the unused and hoarse quality of his voice bespoke no exaggeration. Draco suddenly wondered why Harry was speaking to him, of all people, and felt strangely honoured.

Then the moon came out from behind a cloud, and lit everything pale silver in its wake. With his translucent skin and white-blond hair Malfoy looked ethereal and almost like a ghost – except for an angry purple bruise that blemished the skin on his shoulder, making him look almost fragile and breakable. Harry stifled a gasp, and almost reached out his hand to touch it, feeling a strange need to hold Malfoy and comfort him, before common sense kicked in.

"Did I…" Harry trailed off. Malfoy glanced at his shoulder and pulled up his top to hide it. "No." said Harry.

Malfoy shook his head. "It wasn't you," he said, refusing to meet Harry's eyes.

"You're not your father, but they can't see it…"

"What?" Malfoy looked up suddenly.

Harry looked at him. "He is evil, and you don't come close." Harry spoke softly, as if to dispute the assumption that he'd seen evil, but a hollow tone of voice confirming it.

"I've seen it, and so have you," said Malfoy. He flinched as Harry searched his gaze, but then looked back into the dark in Harry's eyes.

"Yes. We've both known it." Malfoy wondered if Harry had intended to make the subtle distinction between _seeing_ and _knowing_. They sat in a silence that was not awkward.

They decided to leave at the same time. Harry wordlessly slipped Malfoy's pyjama top down his shoulder, and placed his hand on the bruise underneath. Malfoy stiffened, but Harry whispered an incantation and waited as the bruise faded. He slipped the material up again, and turned to leave, disappearing soundlessly into the night shadow. Malfoy uttered a breathless 'thank you' in his wake. He went to bed, and fell asleep hours later when the moon started to fade.

* * *

You've read (hopefully), now make a humble author very happy and review. 


	3. Transient Emotion

Disclaimer: Everything except the plot belongs to JKR. Sniffle.

**PercyIgnatiusWeasley:** Sorry I took so long! I wanted to get the next chapter finished beforeI posted this one.

A/N: This chapter was very hard to write, and maybe it's a little OOC. When I do my rewrite I think I'll rewrite it.

* * *

The Dark Is Cold

Chapter Three – _Transient Emotion _

It was strange to wake up, and not feel exhausted after a short bout of restless sleep, Malfoy reflected. The dream had seemingly calmed him – after all, it _had_ only been a dream. Moments like that, where the night pushes aside all the prejudices of the daytime, don't happen in real life. He sat up and began to dress carefully, favouring his uninjured side – although the warm, tingling feeling that had resulted from the healing had felt so real. Looking over at the bruise, he found it barely a shadow. So, it hadn't been a dream, then.

It probably meant nothing, though, Malfoy thought cynically. Harry was too fucked up to talk to his friends, much less engage in idle chit-chat with his sworn enemy…

…But they had spoken. Malfoy felt strangely honoured that Harry had chosen to spend words on him. He tried to quash it, knowing that Harry would still sit at the Gryffindor table and stare sullenly at an empty plate, and Malfoy himself would sit on his own, apart from everyone. He snorted, and decided that he couldn't blame Harry for wanting to miss meals.

Malfoy pushed his breakfast about on his plate, not really feeling hungry, and noticed with surprise that Harry had actually turned up. He looked a little out of place, his posture stiff and closed, as he sat wordlessly amid the chatter.

He drew his eyes away from Harry, refusing to look in his direction. Until he felt a strange sensation, and got the distinct impression that he was being stared at. He looked up, and was caught in an intense green gaze. He shivered despite the warmth of the hall, and looked back helplessly. He could feel power radiating off him, and the usual cold stare was absent, although Malfoy could not even begin to decipher what was there instead.

"Why're you staring at the Gryffindor table so much? Have you fallen in love with one of them or something? I'd thought even _you_ couldn't sink so far. That's called Stockholm Syndrome, you know, falling for your attackers," said Blaise with a sneer, eliciting smirks and cruel laughter form the Slytherins beside him.

_Stockholm Syndrome is when you become attached to someone who's kidnapped you, idiot._ Malfoy thought numbly. He looked discreetly back over to the Gryffindor table. Harry was looking determinedly at the last bit of a quarter slice of toast, and a moment later he shoved it in his mouth and chewed forcedly. _Hell, he's actually eaten some breakfast. _Malfoy hadn't seen him do that in weeks. Harry was apparently unable to eat any more, because he caught Malfoy's gaze again, gave an almost imperceptible nod, and left abruptly. Malfoy waited a few minutes before following, still reeling from the staring contest…

Hermione stared at the crumbs on Harry's plate, and nudged Ron to get his attention.

Harry put his hand on Malfoy's shoulder. The blond shivered, but did not flinch.

"You do Medical Magic," It wasn't a question. A shadow flickered across Harry's face.

"Thought I might need it." Malfoy just looked.

"Potter, I––" Harry shook his head.

"Draco Malfoy," said Draco, falling back on robotic etiquette.

"Harry," He wasn't the famous Harry Potter, resident Boy-Who-Lived. Draco suddenly understood that he just wanted to be Harry, and that was enough. It meant that Harry didn't care what Draco's second name was. He left, and Draco wondered about his first comment. It was straight, not tainted by cynical or haughty tone of voice. It was all the more true, because it is difficult to interpret unchangeable fact as anything but that.

Draco walked beside Harry as they went around the lake, even though it was a freezing November day, and everyone else was inside, staying warm. Everyone else was inside – maybe that was the idea behind going out. Harry didn't seem to feel the cold, as he wasn't even wearing a winter cloak. Perhaps he could ignore it; perhaps he'd grown used to its biting touch.

Draco didn't speak. He didn't think he'd get a response, and anyway, he'd never been good at honesty. He could lie, he could be polite when it suited him, and he could be cutting, but honesty, the only words worth saying, would not pass his lips coherently. He was beginning to understand that Harry would only listen to honesty, if he felt like listening to anything at all. _'I'm sorry…I understand'_ just didn't cut it. Draco wasn't sorry, because Harry didn't want pity, and he couldn't understand, but he wasn't pretending to. He didn't know what Harry thought of him being there, but knew for certain that he wouldn't be there if Harry didn't want it.

They went back inside. It was dark, and at least one of them was cold and hungry. Harry showed Draco the way to the kitchens. They had missed the feast, but neither of them liked mealtimes, so it didn't matter. Harry just looked at Dobby, then slid his eyes over to Draco, and the House Elf seemed to know what to do. A small group of elves laid a table, and served a meal presumably the same as what the rest of the school had had. Draco finished most of his quite quickly, but Harry took much longer, and barely finished half of it.

"You should eat more," Draco observed.

"I try," said Harry quietly, though Draco could see that he practically had to choke back what little he ate. He didn't push the issue, though privately noted that Harry was painfully and unnaturally thin.

Harry gave a cursory toss of his head that served as a thank you to the House Elves, and they left the kitchens.

"See you later," said Draco, and meant it. Harry nodded, and meant the same thing. He turned and walked up the stairs, and Draco watched him go. He left then, and felt something like content.

Harry rounded a corner after medical; magic, to a sight that stopped him dead in his tracks.

"Shift your pure-blooded arse, Malfoy," That was Ron. Harry watched, frozen into place, wand at the ready but unable to do anything.

"Not laughing so much now, are we? No more of that 'my father' boasting, seeing as _your father_ is currently rotting is Azkaban!" That was…_Hermione_. Harry clenched his fist around his wand, trying to think what to do. He could tell that the last comment had hurt Draco.

"You're no richer or better than us 'Mudbloods' or 'Halfbloods' now, huh? How does it feel to be a commoner after a life of luxury?" Another Gryffindor, whose voice Harry recognised but could not place. Someone shouted 'Expelliarmius!' and Draco was thrown back, landing with a crack against the wall. Harry didn't see who caught the wand. 'Petrificus Totalus!' shouted someone else. Ron smirked, but did not do anything. Hermione looked frightened, and looked worriedly at Draco. Someone ran forward to kick Draco in the ribs, and sudden protective instinct fired Harry into action.

"Imperturbus Infligo!" Harry shouted, blind rage making him choose a more dangerous spell. _They would really have hurt him,_ he thought, disgustedly.

The Gryffindors were thrown back by the powerful spell, a shield separating them from Draco, who moaned weakly. Harry waved his wand briefly, sending Draco into painless unconsciousness. Satisfied for the moment, he turned his gaze and his wand on his Housemates.

"Harry…its _Malfoy_," said Ron, hesitantly.

"You will not lay a finger on him again." He said. _And neither will I…_

They were not sure whether to be more scared by the wand which was levelled at them, or the look Harry gave them. For the first time in months, they saw him without the cold stare, without the mask of blankness that was designed to protect everyone else as well as himself. Pure hot rage emanated from fiercely alive eyes, and they found themselves remembering just how good Harry was at using the wand he was currently pointing at them. Remembering that he had his various epithets and his reputation for a reason. Remembering that he was not just their celebrity housemate.

Harry removed the spell, daring anyone to challenge him. No one dared. He put out his hand, searching in the eyes of the group, but no one reacted. He pinned Ron under his gaze. Nothing needed to be said. Ron handed over Draco's wand and looked at the floor, unable to meet his friend's sharp stare.

Harry put his wand away and picked he blonde boy up, muttering a spell to remove the full body bind. He turned on his heel and stalked noiselessly away, leaving behind him a quieted group of terrified, shamefaced Gryffindors.


	4. Shadow Constant

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the plot. Please don't take my little plot away from me, it's all I have! I'm not JKR! bursts into tears

Wow that was a fast update...and this is a long chapter. Actully, all my chapters are shorter than I thought the would be 'cause I keep having to cut out a lot of crap.I quite like this chapter, but it's a bit rambly, and I don't know if you guys (the readers, whoI will worship if they become reviewers) just want mr to cut to the chase.

IMPORTANT STUFF: I'm going on holiday for twoo weeks then another two weeks after a few days back home, so I won't be able to update till August! Which is why this chappie is so early, I wanted to post before I go.

**myniephoenix, Rydia and juli2**: Thanks! I'm really flattered now - and here ismy 'soon' update.

Review and you will be acknowledged in a list like this!**/\**

The Dark Is Cold

Chapter Four– _Shadow Constant_

Draco woke up to white sheets and a headache. The sharply clean smell could only belong to the hospital wing, and he wrinkled his nose. Harry was sitting by him, and he shifted his expression into a question.

"I'm fine," he said, and was greeted with a sceptical raised eyebrow. "What do I look like?" he stopped and thought for a moment. "What am I doing here anyway?"

Harry pushed his glasses up his nose. "You don't remember?"

"I––" Draco frowned a little. "Someone chased them off, I think." He paused, speaking slowly. "It was you, wasn't it? You yelled something."

"Imperturbus Infligo," he murmured.

Draco looked up sharply. "An ordinary shield spell would have done, you know,"

"I was outnumbered and the situation was unpredictable." He said in a sharp monotone. Draco knew not to reply.

Madame Pomfrey bustled in. " Mr Potter, I thought I told you – oh, you're awake, Mr Malfoy." she frowned. "I thought you said it was a strong spell,"

Harry nodded. "Full blackout. I woke him."

"That was dangerous, Mr Potter! However – Mr Malfoy, you can go when––"

She was interrupted by the arrival of two prefects escorting an unconscious boy, followed by a large group of stragglers. Quickly, she moved the boy into a bed. "Everyone OUT. Yes, that means _all_ of you!"

Draco brightened. "I can go now," He hated the Hospital Wing – hated languishing weakly in a sick bed. Throwing off the covers, he sat up. Harry shook his head definitely.

"She said I could." He stared back, his jaw lifted slightly, and stood up, taking a quick breath and clenching his teeth as he did so. Harry looked at him and, seeing the determined way in which he tried to stand up, moved to help him. Draco didn't try to shake him off.

Harry was strong, Draco reflected. Most of Draco's weight was on him, but he walked without awkwardness, matching Draco's pace and gently supporting him.

"Where are we going?"

Harry didn't answer: somewhere different, then. After a time they approached a door, but not one that was familiar to Draco. The door to a broom cupboard, perhaps, or to a storage closet. But Harry led them Draco in, and placed him on a green bed identical to his own.

Draco fell back onto the bed, closing his eyes in relief. Harry looked at him circumspectly, and took out his wand.

"No," said Draco, shaking his head. Then he stopped abruptly. "Don't see why Pomfrey couldn't have done it."

"My unconsciousness spell." Said Harry. Draco didn't bother to nod. It was all the explanation he was going to get. He was comfortable – too comfortable to be asking questions like _where the hell am I?_ He closed his eyes and felt the pull of sleep, unsure of whether or not it was magical.

SSSSSSSSS

Harry sat in the Gryffindor common room, staring at the fire. It flickered merrily in the grate, casting a warm yellow glow over everything in the room, giving it a cosy and friendly feel.

It did not touch Harry. With his black hair and robes and pale skin, he looked like a monochrome photograph, untouched by the colour or life in his surroundings. Only his green eyes revealed that he wasn't a manifestation of shadow.

He wanted to be a invisible; wanted to go unnoticed in a world where he was the most noticeable thing in it. He learnt silence from other people's noise, and he learnt concealment from the shadows whose company he increasingly sought.

Hermione watched, and wondered. Wondered why – why Harry, why it was all so complicated, why things couldn't be the way they used to be, why…_everything_.

She screamed silently – other whys crossed her mind: why it had to be this way, why it was so unfair, and why she was powerless to do anything about it.

She composed herself. There was no going back. Circumstances had made Harry like this. She wondered what he was thinking, and if the thoughts in his head were as dark as the look on his face. She hated it. Hated giving in; hated the fact that she didn't know all the answers. When she looked at Harry, all she saw was an enigma. Someone so unlike the Harry she'd always known. Something she couldn't write down, analyse and figure out.

What had made Harry into this? A death wouldn't…drive a person like that. Wouldn't change him so totally and completely that his best friends couldn't recognise him. There was something else – there were a lot of other things – but she didn't know. She would never know, because Harry wasn't inclined to tell her, or, in fact, to say anything at all.

She watched him sit, so, so still. Harry didn't used to sit like that; brooding or staring or thinking, he would never have done it sitting motionless. He wouldn't have blended into the background. He was – had been – always in the foreground, a little awkward and a little shy. Not so cool, so still or so silent.

She watched him get up and leave, and his footsteps made no sound. Who had taught him to walk like that? Like a cat, slow and confident, invisible unless you knew he was there. Fading into the gloom, he didn't need his cloak to go unnoticed.

Hermione looked around, and realised that no one had seen him exit. Perhaps no one had seen him enter, either, and perhaps that was a good thing. She didn't know why he had even come.

SSSSSSSSS

Harry paced the corridor awhile. It was a long ingrained habit, and he almost liked it now. This time, though, he wouldn't find Draco. The sleeping spell wasn't as reliable as a sleeping potion, but Draco was tired enough to slip into natural sleep if it weakened. Harry fell into bed after a while, and slept – actually slept – till early morning. He got up, and resumed his position in the common room with a heavy leather-bound volume. He leafed through it slowly, staring intently as if trying to memorise every word it contained.

Hermione was the first to come down to the common room after him. He didn't look up, but she sat beside him anyway.

"What're you reading?"

He didn't answer. She didn't expect him to, so she peered at the dusty black front cover. _From Polyjuice to Veritaserum: A Selective Lysste of the Moste Potente Potions and theyre Uses_ was its title.

"Isn't that from the restricted section?" she asked tentatively, a little scared and under no illusions as to what 'selective' meant. Harry gave no sign that he had heard, but then she opened her mouth again, and he slammed the book shut, fixing her with an angry stare. She backed off, unsure.

Suddenly he started, then took out his wand and flicked it. A hazy picture began to form in the air, and before Hermione could figure out what it was he waved it away and stalked out.

SSSSSSSSS

Draco moaned sleepily, and opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was Harry, sitting on a chair that hadn't been there last night and reading a book.

"Harry?"

He looked up, and closed the book.

"Draco,"

Draco knew that Harry never wasted words. That one word said everything a lot better, for he had never been the most eloquent speaker. It said 'Are you all right?' and 'Thank god you're finally awake,' and a host of other things that couldn't be said with words so easily. Words Draco could manage, but feelings were more difficult to reign in, and feelings were too honest to be twisted into untruths for one's own ends.

Draco Malfoy had grown up with words as weapons and with feelings masked, shoved down into the deepest corner of his being where they lurked, and surfaced in nightmares. Terrible things, emotions. Now he felt like a fish out of water, not knowing what to do or what not to say. There was nothing he could hide behind, and he felt naked, stripped of all pretences and left with incontrovertible truth. The truth can be merciless, and Draco found that lies were so much easier…but to be the person he had thought he was, just like his father, was to be alone, and every atom of truth and feeling in him screamed that he did not want that.

Harry was a tangible presence, especially when silent, and most of all he understood what it was like to be alone. Most people thought that Harry was lonely and sad as well as angry, but it wasn't like that.

Wasn't it? Could he really say that Harry was not lonely? For the first time, Draco reflected that Harry might need him. It was a strange thought – so far it had been the other way round; Draco was alone, Harry was there, and Draco felt strangely honoured that Harry had chosen to stay with him. It was silly, because Harry Potter couldn't be lonely, couldn't _need_ anyone. Draco was left wondering what went on in his head – and knew that even given a thousand years, he would not be able to work it out.

Harry waited, then pulled Draco up. He went back to his book as the other boy dressed and brushed his hair. They went to breakfast, but not together. Harry sat in the spot he usually sat in when he actually turned up for a meal, and Draco in his. Both of them knew that 'usual' was changing, although neither of them knew where they might end up.

Draco had a lot of thinking to do, and he could either spend time thinking about Harry and getting precisely Nowhere, or he could turn to introspection, something he was quite good at. He was being changed, he no longer knew who he was. He hated who he had been, but he was still that person, a little. Harry was changing, or maybe circumstances and Harry, and he trusted Harry if not anything else. Harry was Dark, and Draco saw that, and saw him as more of a person than anyone had ever done. He had little idea about anything important, because when all the lies are shattered, all you have is uncertainty and yourself. Draco liked neither, but truth, he knew, couldn't come until later. He didn't want truth now, because the truth hurts, and nobody really wants to hear it, least of all someone who spent his life hiding behind swathes of fabricated lies.

So Draco would be content with uncertainty and a self he didn't know, and Harry. He could be content because Harry was a constant; he had been everyone's constant, but everyone wasn't there anymore and now he was Draco's constant.


	5. Motives

Disclaimer: not mine...sniffle

By the way, welcome to the world of the AU! HBP is officially out, and I won't be accomodating canon, because (as you will know if you've read it) I'd have to totally change and repost my story.

So:w00t! An early update! It's still almost a week to go till it's August. This chapter, especially the end, was really hard to write, so hopefully I've done okay.

**Sinilu Silverspell:** Thank you, I'm glad you like my style...oh, and 'comfortable and content' has just officially gone out of the window.

**chaeli.meep:** I feel flattered...but what did you mean when you said 'ME!'?

**xox-Rachelle-xox:** Well, 'romance' is maybe not the right word, but yes! It says 'slash' in the summary but only very quietly...mostly because I refuse to warn for slash, I mean, do you warn for het? nope. Anyway, on with the story!

The Dark Is Cold

Chapter Five – _Motives_

Harry sat in a disused corner of the library, a large, dusty leather tome lying in his lap. He liked that it was disused; what he didn't like were places filled with prying, chattering people. The book, _Historie of Magicks Discoverede in Thysse, The Sixteenthe Centurie _had obviously not been touched in years. It resided in them ordinary section, partly because pupils might have cause to look it up for innocent purposes, but mostly because no one ever touched it. Except possibly Hermione, and even she would only use it for brief reference, with little inclination to browse the whole archaic text.

But the sixteenth century was notorious for anti-magical revolts, burnings and witch-hunts, and consequently, witches and wizards had delved into Dark Magic to protect themselves. Harry also knew that he was arming himself with a weapon which, he hoped, Voldemort would be unfamiliar with.

He was venturing into the realm of Dark magic – but then he knew that. Knew, as well, that he couldn't fight the Dark lord with light spells alone; _wingardium leviosa _might have defeated a troll, but ordinary light spells were not going to touch Voldemort. Most spells after OWL level were in the grey area, somewhere between light and Dark where nobody knew where to draw the line. In the grey area, _intent _determined whether a spell was Dark

He knew it all, having studied it closely, but he hadn't needed to study it to know he didn't care. The day Sirius died he left behind all the moral battles – and now he knew he'd kill Voldemort and Bellatrix with his own hands if he had to. Although, he thought with a slight smirk, he really would rather not have to.

And, when he did (for there could be no if, else he would tear himself apart with doubt), it wouldn't be for Dumbledore, and it wouldn't be for the world. Voldemort had been right on one thing, though Harry was loath to admit it. There was no 'good' or 'evil' – it could never be so clear cut as that, and the world was like a black-and-white photograph; made up of shades of grey.

He sometimes thought that the side of 'light' (gray…but which shade?) was as screwed up as their near-black counterparts (because pure, baseless evil is mindless, indiscriminate destruction, and even Voldemort was not that. And pure destruction is a shade so black it is nearly white, because it clears the old rot and makes way for new life, like the opposite ends of a spectrum which are one and the same, if total destruction is beautiful creation and pure hatred is obsessive love).

They lied to themselves, and to everyone else, about fighting for a good and noble cause, and ethics and morality and all the other virtues that disappear the moment they reach the battle. They cheated, they manipulated and they hurt and they schemed and why should they care if one person has to sacrifice themself if it's for the good of the cause and it's saving so many other lives? And they don't, because it's not them that has to do it.

And in an old, deserted corner of the library, an empty classroom or the Room of Requirement, Harry learnt, and practised, and waited. He studied theory he'd never seen as important before, and began to wonder how he'd blundered through without it, suddenly seeing some _sense_, some _connection_ between every form of magic that stemmed from raw, directionless force.

He felt that force well up inside him, fuelling increasingly draining spells. Inspecting and testing himself, he still fell far short of his own standards. His own gauge was formed from a brief but intense sudden knowledge of the power of Voldemort, and he failed to recognise the extent of his own capabilities, forgetting that a power to match Voldemort's would have to also match Dumbledore's. He forgot how unreachable a standard they were to everyone else, and simply forged ahead, consumed by and controlling a strange burning driving force.

Perhaps he would have gone insane, trying to hide all this under the cover of a normal life. It seemed insane to even try. He briefly wondered if this was insanity, cut sharply off from the world by his own making, being as they were a breach of his focussed concentration, which had brought him through everything alive. And then…

There was Draco Malfoy. He couldn't explain Draco Malfoy, disregarded by the school as he was and somehow, Harry's friend. Draco was…different, in some indefinable way; seeming to share Harry's distaste at the pettiness that abounded, the turning of a blind eye: no, not a blind eye to the fact that they were in a WAR. It was more an illusion of normalcy, an _overlooking_ of the facts, knowing they existed but pretending they didn't.

Draco, though he hadn't said anything of the sort, seemed to agree. He didn't ask Harry constantly if he was all right, seemed content with not talking or helping or _trying_, but just being there. Proud and stubborn as they both were, neither would admit to needing anything, which was perhaps why they sought each other's company. Maybe, just by being there, they would save each other.

SSSSSSSSS

Harry walked with Draco, or maybe Draco walked with Harry. Perhaps they just walked together; at any rate they did so along a seventh floor corridor, a place usually deserted when there were no classes.

"Draco?" Someone said. He knew immediately that it wasn't Harry, and turned around sharply in the direction of the voice. Harry turned around too, and favoured Pansy with a mistrustful gaze that was probably lost on her, although Draco realised what it meant.

"Parkinson," said Draco. "What a pleasant surprise."

She glared at him, then at Harry, looking away from the latter quickly. "What the bloody hell are you doing with _him_?" she said, angrily.

The line of Draco's jaw hardened. "Seeing as we're no longer acquaintances, I'd have to say that's none of your fucking business," he said in a chilled tone. "But then, loyalty never did get you far in Slytherin."

She snorted. "It's your own fault, you know. You made too many enemies, and your friends stabbed you in the back when they realised what direction the wind was blowing." She said, without sympathy.

"Pansy, wait," he said quietly. She stopped, but didn't turn around. "Don't tell anyone. Please."

"So you really are friends? How the mighty are fallen – not that you were ever anything but a coward."

In an incredibly swift movement, Harry summoned his wand from his pocket and placed it at the back of her neck so she could feel the chilled wood at her skin.

"Harry? What is it? What are you doing?" said Draco, eyeing her warily.

"Drop it," said Harry almost inaudibly. Pansy froze, as one does when confronted by Harry Potter in a careful fury. "I said drop it!" he barked, his hoarse command echoing down the empty hall, and she gave a small terrified whimper as her wand clattered to the floor. Harry summoned it with his other hand. "Turn around – good, now what in the name of Merlin was that supposed to be?" he pinned her with a furious gaze, and she looked at the floor quickly, before turning to Draco. Harry kept his wand trained on her.

"They wanted you back, unconscious." She gave a bitter laugh. "And you don't just disobey. Blaise and his cronies are far worse than you ever were…"

Draco frowned, remembering the manic glint that had often been in Zabini's eyes.

"It was a test of my loyalty – I expect I'll be punished. But the line has to be drawn somewhere, and I might as well be the one to do it" She faced him, her jaw lifted. "I won't betray you – or Potter. I can't _promise_, they have ways of making you do things––"

She broke off. "But I'd fight it."

Harry raised his wand again, and she backed away. "You're hurt,"

She shifted nervously and threw a glance to Draco.

"Let him," he said. She stood still, and Harry whispered '_sanare omnis_', moving his wand in a slow circle over her head. A strange glow seemed to radiate from his wand,

flowing down Pansy's body. Then he stepped back, and she opened her eyes to look at him.

"Thank you," she said briefly and turned to go, still possessing that air of cool defiance that marked her a true Slytherin. When she had gone, Harry swayed and leaned against the wall.

"What?" said Draco, frowning.

"I shouldn't have done it that way – too draining with all of her injuries, but I didn't want to embarrass her." Said Harry, sounding tired. Draco but his lip in a response, but Harry started walking again and Draco followed. They reached the place Draco now knew to be the Room of Requirement, and Harry did the necessary motions before stepping in. He then opened a cupboard and took out a small bottle, quickly downing its contents.

"What potion was that?" asked Draco

Harry tossed him the bottle. "Strengthening solution?" he read. "Did you make this? 'Cause, you know, you're not very good at potions." Harry looked offended, probably meaning that he had made it.

There were many more potions in the cupboard. Draco looked at the labels, and saw that there were many strengthening solution variants and dreamless sleep potions, as well as other healing potions and antidotes. Looking further up the shelves, he saw Draughts of confusion, Polyjuice potion, and many more that didn't have labels, only a few of which he recognised. And on the very top shelf near the back there was a tiny vial of crystal-clear potion, which could only be Veritaserum.

Draco's eyes widened. He hadn't actually _tried_ to brew Veritaserum, but he had looked at the recipe, and it was extremely complex. There was also the little matter that possession without a licence usually meant Azkaban.

"Harry?" He held up the colourless vial.

Harry opened his eyes again and breathed, feeling the strengthening solution coursing through his blood.

"Wh––" his voice died when he saw fist the open cupboard, then the potion in Draco's hand. The explanation that he wanted, Harry wasn't able to give. The facts were those he couldn't bear to hear repeated, much less from his own cracked lips. But that wasn't really why – and that's all Draco wanted to know: _Why? _

But that was a question to which even Harry himself didn't know the answer.

"Sit down," he said. Draco steadfastly stood. "I didn't say 'sit down' for the good of my health, I said it for the good of _yours_ so sit!" he paused. Draco sat, calmly awaiting an explanation, and Harry could see he didn't expect anything like what he was going to get, hence the sitting down.

Harry sat down, and slowly told him everything. About Voldemort, the prophesy, Sirius, Bellatrix…how he was doing it for himself, and things he'd never told anyone, like how he couldn't stand it if Voldemort took anyone else away. He said it all in a quiet whisper, and bowed his head once he'd finished.

Draco didn't say anything, and there was a long pause before Harry looked up and saw white shock freezing Draco's features.

"And now you know," he said, voice cracking with he knew not what, and vision blurring though he wasn't ill. Breathing shakily, he got up.

And stormed out of the door.


	6. The Path to Hell

Disclaimer: I hope you've figured out by now that nothing is mine, I'm only a JKR-worshipper like everybody else.

Heaps of thanks to go to **twitchyfingers** and **emeraldwolf**, cookies and schnoogles go to **myniephoenix**, **xox-Rachelle-oxo**, juli2 and **Sinilu Silverspell** for being loyal reviewers (btw Sinilu, I'm loving your RampagingReviewer!skit)

God this update took forever...This chapter started running away and taking the plot with it, so I had to dash after it and hope. Anyway, on with the story!

The Dark Is Cold

Chapter Six – _The Path to Hell_

It had been two days since Harry had stormed off, leaving Draco in shock, and he had not seen even a glimmer of Harry. Draco had known that Harry could go unnoticed, but hadn't realised just how _bloody good_ he was at it, having resisted all attempts to be found. The weekend had been empty and slow to pass – without any classes as distraction, Draco thought, and knew he really meant without Harry.

He lay back on his bed and stared at the ceiling, thanking Merlin for the private rooms of prefects. It was sparsely decorated – green and silver bed hangings, crisp white walls and a dark wood floor, a desk and a wardrobe. Books, parchment and quills here and there, but no photos, posters or anything remotely personal. Suddenly, heat and claustrophobia combined to make him dizzy, and he didn't think before marching outside at speed without his cloak.

The ground outside was covered in a white dusting of frost, and the chill wind whipped his hair, tearing through his clothes and freezing his blood, and he walked on. He almost didn't see the figure sitting by the lake and throwing stones into it, but when he realised it was Harry he almost laughed to himself. Only Harry would come out when it was this cold, and without his cloak. But then, Draco was out without his cloak, too.

He stopped, and sat beside Harry. The other didn't look up, just kept staring across the lake, not acknowledging Draco's presence at all, seemingly. He picked up a stone and tossed it in bloodless fingers, brows drawing together a little as he concentrated, then with a sudden flick of the wrist he sent it skimming across the water.

"Draco,"

"Yeah?" There was a pause before Harry replied, and he still had not looked at Draco.

"You shouldn't be here. It's too cold."

"Not for you, apparently. Or don't the rules apply to you?"

"Yes…but maybe I'm why you shouldn't be here. Why nobody should be here."

"I've never been good at doing what I should," Draco retorted, suddenly angry at Harry.

"Would you do what you should, if it was what you wanted?"

"What you should do is never what you want; the reason you want it is because you shouldn't have it." He paused. "I always do what I want,"

"I think you're just stubborn,"

"Like you then," said Draco. Harry didn't refute it.

"I don't think you know what you want – otherwise you wouldn't be here."

"I like to break the rules, and you said the rule is no one goes near you…or do you want me to avoid you as well?"

There was a pause. Harry turned his head sharply and looked Directly at Draco, who shivered slightly under the sudden gaze.

"No."

"Then why do you keep telling me to leave?"

"I wouldn't dare presume to tell Draco Malfoy what he wants…or indeed what to do," a slight smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth – or perhaps it was just Draco's imagination.

"You're avoiding my questions."

"Am I?" Maybe I'm just not giving you the answers you wanted."

"Maybe I'm not either." Draco's voice raised a little, and he almost snarled at Harry. "You want me to tell you that I _hate_ you, that you're _sick_, that you're betraying everyone by doing what you're doing." He stood up suddenly. "Don't just sit there and wallow in self-pity, because I won't let you! I'm sure Voldemort and Lestrange don't have any qualms about hating _you_, in fact, if I remember rightly, Voldemort has been trying to kill you for Merlin knows how many years!"

Harry stood up, staring at him and once again he felt the terrible physical blow of emotion from them, but he blundered on, half shouting because he knew somehow that Harry was tired of hearing what other people had to say.

"If the others – if they don't understand, it doesn't matter. They haven't had a mortal enemy since they were a year old, they haven't seen people killed before their eyes, they haven't had Cruciatus cast on them by Voldemort, they haven't duelled with him, and they _can't _understand! This is a war but everyone's too busy trying to forget to do anything, and that's where they're wrong. Because you don't have the luxury of forgetting, and neither do I, so we have to do something – and you…you're just doing what you have to,"

His breath was coming heavily, and he watched Harry carefully for his reaction. If he had understood at all – Draco knew that it hadn't been one of his most coherent speeches.

"So you won't become a Death Eater then, not like you father,"

Draco flinched. "No, I won't…at least the side of light doesn't force their followers to wear such an unstylish tattoo."

Harry started laughing. Draco couldn't remember the last time he'd heard Harry laugh; he thought it was in fourth year, because after that Harry didn't have much to laugh about. And now it was a sardonic laugh, dry and cynical and not a casual chuckle at a joke someone had made, because the person who'd laughed at those kind of jokes wasn't there anymore.

Draco shivered, and noticed the cold again.

"C'mon, let's go inside. It's cold." Harry said.

"Doesn't seem to bother you,"

Harry said nothing, but took off his robe and wrapped it around Draco's shoulders. He didn't wear anything especially warm underneath – just jeans and a jumper, and it was a long walk back to the school. They finally arrived, but Harry seemed to forget that Draco had his robes, and didn't ask for them back. They lingered around the entrance Hall awkwardly.

"Merlin, I'm not going to _leave_ or anything," Draco said, grasping Harry's shoulder. "Just – don't do that to me."

"Do what?"

"Avoid me, and then I can't find you." He said forcefully, as if trying to impress the words with his eyes.

Harry nodded in vague, lost kind of way and stood helplessly unwilling to leave or shake Draco's hand off. Draco cocked his head for a moment and pulled Harry into a swift, sharp hug.

It was nothing like Hermione's hug, desperate and clingy, nor like Mrs Weasley's, claustrophobic and cosseting. Draco was all pointed bones, arrogant lines and aristocratic structure, and that brief gesture had said everything that he couldn't articulate. Because Harry and Draco knew that neither of them was very good with words that meant something like sentiment.

SSSSSSSSS

Harry walked into Potions and sat down. He calmly took out his materials and arranged them on his desk, gaze flickering round the room and focussing on each person in turn. He knew there was something different, something…missing, but was unable to put his finger on what.

Draco walked in and sat down. He didn't look at Harry, but his eyes flickered in Harry's direction, making sure that he was there.

Snape walked in. Suddenly, Harry realised what was wrong – Pansy Parkinson was not there. He did not start, nor appear to have noticed anything at all, merely sat fiddling distractedly with a quill, parchment and text in front of him. He had much practice at appearing uninterested and uninteresting, in the off chance that someone happened to be looking at him.

"To prevent any…_mishaps_ with this potion, _I_ have allocated a partner to each of you. Granger-Zabini, Potter-Malfoy, Thomas-Nott…"

Snape missed Pansy off the list – he knew where she was, then, Harry thought.

"Today you will make Veritaserum."

He always said that. Not _Today you will learn to make_, or _Today you will try to make,_ or even _Today I will teach you to make_; no, it was _Today you will make…or else_.

"What are the properties of Veritaserum?" He continued. "Anyone?" he said, in a manner which suggested that he expected no one to know. Hermione put up her hand, but not enthusiastically – she had learned not to hold her breath in Snape's class. Everyone else looked unsure – except Harry, who carefully schooled his features into Mildly Interested – With lashings of Concealed Shadow, just because he couldn't keep it entirely off his face.

"Mr Potter, why don't you, attempt to tell us?"

Harry answered in a low voice, and without hesitation.

"It is one of the most potent truth serums, colourless and odourless, and a tiny amount will suffice to make the subject reveal their innermost secrets…even those things that they are not aware of knowing. For this reason its use is…strictly controlled by the Ministry."

Snape looked displeased. "Correct," he snapped grudgingly, and continued, "The instructions are on the board. You will find yourself unable to copy them down and use them at a later date; however, I do not doubt that most of you will be unequal to the task of brewing this potion with any semblance of accuracy whatsoever.

"Well, get started!"

Harry did not even glance at the instructions. "You read them," he told Draco. "I'll get the ingredients."

When he returned he proceeded to calmly direct the whole process, muttering extra instructions to Draco, watching the temperature of the cauldron and adjusting it with the confidence of one who had brewed the potion many times before.

Snape prowled the room, breathing down the necks of those unfortunate enough to be getting it right in any way. He sneered at the poorest attempts, then arrived at Harry and Draco's potion.

"Apparently, infamy does not detract from your potion skills, Mr Malfoy. I am only surprised that our resident celebrity didn't jinx it,"

Harry didn't get angry. He didn't grit his teeth, or open his mouth. He did, however, look Snape directly in the eye, and was pleased when he started a little.

The bell rang, and sounds of relief were heard from all around the classroom.

"We will continue with this Potion next lesson, as most of you have done no better than I predicted." He allowed himself a malignant smirk. "Class dismissed."

There was a mad rush to get out.

"That was unfair," Draco remarked. "I'd have fucked it up as well if you hadn't been there. It's thanks to _you_ that it was correct."

"It wasn't."

"What?" Draco raised a confused eyebrow. "I just _said_ it was you – god, you have self esteem issues!"

Harry permitted himself the luxury of a meaningful eye rolling. "I meant the potion."

"Oh." Draco frowned. "I thought it was perfect."

"No. Not quite potent enough, but it would still have worked. You'd just have to have used an increased dosage, which has greater risk of making the drinker go loony."

"How do you know all this? And did you just say 'loony'?"

"I made the potion forty-seven times before I got it right. And it was a tribute to Luna Lovegood."

"Ah," said Draco, vaguely able to conjure up the face of a strange-looking blonde girl with her head permanently in the clouds.

Someone was coming. Harry tensed, moving a little and adjusting his stance – and faded into the shadows. It was intriguing to watch – he didn't disappear; he became nondescript, fading into the background in such a way that you had to know he was there to notice him. Hermione bumped into him, muttered 'sorry', and didn't seem to realise that it was Harry. Draco flung him an almost impressed look, and left for arithmancy.

He didn't see Harry give Hermione a look that might have been a glare, had it not been so desperately sad.

SSSSSSSSS

"Malfoy!" a voice shouted behind him. He turned sharply. "Malfoy, it's Pansy," _Pansy…what about Pansy?_ He couldn't say anything. "She – she's hurt. In the Hospital Wing."

SSSSSSSSS

_The path to Hell is paved with good intentions_ – proverb


	7. Work Your Magic

Disclaimer: Not mine. Really. If you don't believe me, take a look in my bank account.

I wanted to post this chapter before I go back to school, hence the quick upload. Unfortunately, when I _do_ go back to school, I won't have much time to write my story (sob). It can't be helped, and I'll try and keep the updates at least monthly. Thanks in advance for being patient.

**Reviewers**: I love you _all_ for the wonderful comments you make.

**Jujube15** and **jadewtch**: Like I said, (or if I haven't said it now's as good a time as any) all reviews make me hapy. You don't have to go Hermione on me and write five pages (though if you did I'd bake lots of batches of cookies with your name on them, etc...). So, muchos gracias.

**draco8448: **Yes, the slash is going to take a while - I tried, I tried, but the boys are stubborn!You have faith in me? (blushes). This is about as ASAP as it gets.

**Incandescence**; After such a wonderful review, yes, you absolutely have my full permission to go all fan-ish (I have a fan! w00t!). It's not often you think, wow, maybe there is the occasional sentence in my stuff that's better off out of the bin.. On a side-note, the evil pink fuzzles of doom? Eeep! (runs, hides) Don't kill me! If you do There won't be any more story!

**Ruby** and **Aura:** Hi to both of you - and, yes, poor Harry. On with the story!

The Dark Is Cold

Chapter Seven – _Work Your Magic_

Draco didn't hesitate before turning and running to the Hospital Wing. Some part of him remembered that Harry had Medical Magic now, and he wouldn't need to fetch him. It was almost unconscious – the need to have Harry there when he asked what was wrong with Pansy. Even though perhaps he already knew. Perhaps Harry already knew.

He opened the door to find Harry and Madame Pomfrey discussing something in low, worried voices. Harry turned round almost immediately, without seeming to look up.

"Draco…it's about Pansy," Harry began.

"I know she's in here," he began, stumbling towards Harry. "What's wrong with her? I want to see her!"

He noticed Madame Pomfrey's gaze flicker to Harry, who nodded. She pulled aside some curtains round a bed.

Pansy was lying, motionless, her clothes ripped and visible skin beginning to purple with bruises. Even in unconsciousness, her face showed evidence of pain she'd endured while last awake. Her forehead was creased and her eyes scrunched closed.

Draco sank into a chair. "Pansy…"

Madame Pomfrey looked back at Harry. "Work your magic, Potter."

"On which one?" he asked, and she only shook her head absently before rushing off. Harry sat down wearily, taking Pansy's hand in one of his and placing the other on her forehead. Then he closed his eyes, and breathed out slowly. Nothing appeared to happen, but Draco fancied that some of the lines on her forehead evened out as she relaxed into natural sleep.

Madame Pomfrey came back in, wand and potions in hand. Harry stood up suddenly.

"How many, Madame Pomfrey?" he said, quietly, and Draco noticed for the first time how tired and careworn the woman looked. She didn't answer, but didn't look at him either, unstoppering a potion.

"I said, 'How many?'" he repeated himself more sharply, fixing the nurse with a gaze that was interrogative, but not overly harsh.

"I don't know – a dozen? Potter, you must understand, _I_ can't do anything except treat their physical wounds and…and send them back. You have no idea how guilty I feel every time I have to do that," she said. Her eyes glistened a bit as she looked back at Pansy.

Draco had had enough. "Harry, what's going on? What's wrong with Pansy? Who hurt her?"

"Use your brain, Mr Malfoy!" It was Madame Pomfrey that spoke. "Who do you think?"

"Draco, we think…we think Pansy has been raped." Harry said, then took an uneasy breath and continued, "And she isn't the first."

Draco hung his head. _Pansy, hurt…others too, at least a dozen, Madame Pomfrey said…Blaise…_

_And he had let him._

When Draco raised his eyes again, they were burning. "They're _my_ Slytherins, Zabini, you hear? _I'm_ supposed to protect them, and I won't let anyone hurt them!" he shouted at nothing, seeing Blaise's scythe-hard smile on the face in front of him. The image faded as he became more determined.

"We're going to stop him." said Draco.

SSSSSSSSS

In Medical Magic, Madame Pomfrey began a short lecture in something that almost resembled her usual brisk but pleasant manner.

"Today, we shall be looking at the Full Body Healing spell. With a relatively simple incantation, one can heal every ill on the patient – but be careful, because it tends to heal clumsily. Sometimes it knits broken bones together in the wrong place or misheals mangled or very deep wounds. It is also very draining for the healer if the patient is badly wounded."

She went on to describe the method and incantation, and finished by telling them that it was a hard spell to master, so not to worry if they didn't manage it this lesson.

The students formed a line, taking turns in attempting to heal a small first year who was lightly bruised from tripping over a few steps. Looking carefully at Harry, Madame Pomfrey placed him last.

No one succeeded; Hermione frowned and examined her wand when her attempt didn't work. At last, Harry's turn came about. Viewing the fidgeting first year, he wished all of the Mediwitch's patients could be treated so easily.

"Mr Potter…" she sighed. "What will I do with him? Before this, he cast an unpredictable unconsciousness spell on someone so I couldn't heal them, then waltzed in and woke him up with his magic blooming touch! I never did get a chance to heal him…I assume you took care of him?"

She fixed him with a questioning glance that was soft enough to tell him that she was glad of his 'magic blooming touch'. He nodded in response

"Who was it, Madame Pomfrey?" Hermione asked, frowning. Pomfrey spoke before Harry could object.

"I think it was the Malfoy boy, if I remember right."

All the Gryffindors present, even those who had not been involved, had the good grace to look abashed.

"What was it that happened, again? You never did say…"

"An accident," said Harry, tersely, looking pointedly at Hermione.

"Anyhow, we'll study this again next lesson. Class dismissed," she said, briskly.

Hermione caught up with him on her way out.

"Harry," she began, fighting the waves of utter indifference he was giving off. "_Why?_"

He stopped. "There are some things you don't understand, Hermione." _Like the things he made me understand. And that I'm such a hypocrite for helping him when I did the same thing to him. Does he blame me? Does he even remember that I left him to bleed in a dark corridor not so many months ago?_

"Wouldn't you have done the same thing? I know you're a kind person, Hermione; do you hate him so much that you'd leave him to hurt, and ignore your human compassion? Because there are only a few people who deserve that kind of hatred – and Malfoy is not one of them."

He didn't wait for her response.

"I'm – I'm sorry, Harry," she said to the empty corridor. "I'm sorry about everything,"

SSSSSSSSS

"The holidays start tomorrow," Draco said abruptly, as if he'd only just realised.

"They do?" Harry stopped, and turned. "And you're not staying." It wasn't a question.

"I have to go. And…I want to see my mother."

_A loaded statement if ever there was one._ It wasn't Harry's place to talk about Draco's family. He himself didn't have a family, so what would he know? Still, he couldn't forget how cold Draco's parents were with him – Harry's parents would have been _mum_ and _dad_, but Draco's would always be _mother_ and _father_.

He tried to attribute the twinge he felt to surprise at how quickly the term had passed; he refused to acknowledge it as jealousy. Unable to think of a response, he didn't give one. 'Oh' had no meaning on its own – it was the expression that communicated.

And sounded like the speaker was fumbling for words. Which was true, but it was much easier not to say anything.

Harry was left wondering what on earth he would do for two weeks.

SSSSSSSSS

He put in a rare appearance at breakfast; if anyone noticed, they didn't comment. Spending most of the time watching the door, he didn't get around to eating anything, if he had felt in the mood for eating in the first place. Draco didn't come, and Harry was about to go looking for him when some part of him wondered cynically if he was going to spend two weeks pining, and he shook himself.

He walked, noticing in a manner that he tried to construe as idle but failed miserably, that the train left in half an hour.

"Harry," There was quiet call a way behind him, but he heard it – Draco.

He turned.

"I – I'm going now,"

"Yes," he said, having found a substitute for 'oh'.

"See you in, uh, two weeks, then,"

"Goodbye," Harry agreed, wanting to leave and run after him at the same time.

But Draco didn't move, and neither did Harry, until they fell into another sharp hug that was another 'goodbye', but somehow a much more satisfying one.

"Owl me," was somewhere between a demand and a plea.

Harry didn't have to keep looking back on his return journey to the common room.

SSSSSSSSS

Hermione had stayed at school to study.

Ron, on the other hand, had gone home, knowing it was fruitless to stay behind for Harry.

But Hermione knew some things, or rather, she didn't, which was the point.

She knew Pansy was in the Hospital Wing, and wondered why Harry had been standing beside her bed. She had seen Malfoy leave the Hospital Wing before Medical Magic, and wondered why he had looked as though he should have been going in the opposite direction.

She wondered when Harry had stopped hating Malfoy. Or…perhaps he never had. Certainly she'd never seen that Look, when his eyes turned the exact colour of the Killing Curse, before the Department of Mysteries. A lot of things had changed after the Department of Mysteries.

Things that shouldn't have changed, like that she didn't know Harry anymore – and she didn't know if she ever had.

SSSSSSSSS

_Draco, _

_There's nothing to do now – and don't bother with the how-are-yous, because you know I'll say 'I'm fine', and so will you. Even if we aren't._

_Pansy hasn't woken up, but she's getting better. Madame Pomfrey wanted to keep her sedated until she can get up. To be ill in bed is depressing, and she doesn't need that._

_God, I wish she'd wake up – then I could stop feeling bloody sorry for her and go back to the way it was. But you care about her – even though she sold you out to Zabini. Although I suppose she didn't have a choice._

_Don't hate yourself for hating him – you told me that once. It works both ways, so don't forget it. _

_Harry_

Draco held the letter, and thoughtfully ran his fingertips over its surface, bending and turning it as a hundred stifled thoughts were turned over in his mind. He wondered what this tugging in his chest was, and why it _hurt_, as if he could touch the place where it pulled and there would be blood running like water from a break in his skin. It felt wrong that he should hurt and yet be unmarked.

It couldn't be that he was _lonely_. He couldn't possibly be _missing_ anyone. Malfoys, so said the stern-faced portraits on the cold marble walls, did not have weaknesses like that.

He hadn't gone near any of his father's portraits.

He closed his eyes, and imagined he was back at Hogwarts.

_Yes…he was outside. He didn't have to imagine the cold. The Lake was freezing over in places, and would probably totally freeze before the end of January. He was walking…and Harry was beside him._

_Their breath misted in front of them, and grass peaked in patches through the layer of snow. Even the Quidditch pitch was covered, and icicles dripped in a patch of frozen time from the goal hoops. The forbidden forest looked much less forbidding covered it white and crystal._

_Acres of grounds stretched out around them. It could be said that they looked lonely – but Draco was not lonely. Not with Harry…_

"Draco? Are you all right?" It was his mother, and he reluctantly returned to the Manor, whose freezing temperatures were not the only cause of the continual chill.

"I'm fine, mother," he answered, wondering if he was telling the truth. Narcissa smiled a little, guardedly, and left him.

Narcissa and Draco sat at the formal dining table. It was far too large for two people; extravagant even for three, but Lucius had always insisted they use it. It was an antique Mahogany piece, with ornate carvings on the legs and matching chairs, and rich old varnish that smelt musty and warm. It had probably been expensive – hence the reason, Draco had always thought, why his father had wanted to use it.

Now, he thought perhaps it was for intimidation.

"What were you thinking?" Narcissa asked into the silence that was made of the polite scraping of cutlery. Draco looked up from his lavish but barely touched dinner, wary of saying the wrong thing.

"About what?" he inquired with a careful air of mild interest.

"I had to call you twice earlier – you were in a little world of your own," She prodded. Draco worried him bottom lip with his teeth, wondering what she wanted to hear."Who sent you that letter that you stared at for fully ten minutes? Was it Pansy? Such a nice girl––"

Pansy could be a lot of things, a few of them admirable, but none of them even remotely resembled the word 'nice'.

_Oh God, Pansy…_

Draco didn't answer, burying thoughts of throttling Zabini in his sleep. The best tactic at this point, he knew, was to say something dismissive to put her off, but he couldn't think of anything to say. Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to be out of the room; in fact out of the Manor, and back at Hogwarts.

"No? Not Pansy then," She eyed him carefully for a moment, then said, "I hope she's a Slytherin, Draco," In a tone that suggested she had better be. "And you father always said to be careful of having close friends, lest they betray you."

Draco nearly choked. Betrayal – but Pansy had had no choice. And when she had tried…Draco would rather she had just betrayed him properly.

"So it is better not to have friends at all? Only _minions_?" Draco cut in sharply. He had spent most of his life believing that, and look where it had got him. He felt sick at himself.

She nodded slightly. "Be careful, Draco." He waited half a minute or so before pushing aside his uneaten meal and leaving at speed.

Narcissa pulled a letter from her sleeve and fingered it, sighing slightly. Then she stood up and hurled it into the fire.


	8. On My Honour

This is so late that the word 'late' doesn't even begin to do it justice, andI am very sorry for everyone I left hanging. Unfortunately, what with work and whatnot, squeezing far too much into too few hours etc, my time for writing is limited. I'm lucky if Ican get half an hour a night, and I need to do each major part of the plot in one longish burst. I hope you appreciate that I would rather submit a finished and edited story that I'm happy with than a rushed, average version, and I'm sure you prefer to read the better version.

This chapter contains a lot of background plot which takes a while to think out, but is important to the background of the story. The chapter title refers to the Narcissa-Draco-Lucius conflict, which is an important feature of the plot.

Blah. Over with boring author notes. Reviewers: (whom I love and give lots of virtual hugs and cookies to!)

**Jujube15**: Not too sure about the number of chapters. I have the general plot planned out but I just write each chapter until I reach a sort of conclusion (or cliffie!). But, we're..into the middle of the story, I think. The plot's constantly being added to, though.

**Ruby** and **Aura:** :hugs: love the skits. And:Clears throat:adopts a mysterious tone: _this _is what's with the letter in the fire thing.

**Draco8448**: I know! I wish Draco could have stayed too :sniffle: Bad author! Bad!

**xox-Rachelle-oxo**: You've reviewed both my fics...I'm so happy! Re the sequel...when I get around to it. I have a rather large plan kicking about. :blushes: You love my fic? Um, sorry it was so late...

**Tipsy Turtle**: Love the name - sounds like Dumbledore. Another two-fic reviewer...I'm blessed. I wouldn't recommend reading at 4 am though, your brain tends to get confused.

**Emeraldwolf**: I sympathise...oh god, do I know what tons of work means. And if you _really_ want 'the plot thickens'...

**PercyIgnatiusWeasley**: You may have realised by now that compliments make me blush - I am doing so now. Profusely.

**Mikemack**: so do I! and I will, unless I, you know, get sent to prison or something...

Guys, you're all making me blush very very red at all your compliments. It really spurred me on this time even though I'm swamped, so thanks. On with the story!

The Dark Is Cold

Chapter Eight – _On My Honour_

Interlude

Narcissa examined herself in a golden mirror. It was ornate and unsympathetic, so she moved to another in her room.

"Oh, Dearie," it said, making motherly clucking noises. "That's a nasty bruise you've got yourself,"

"It's nothing," said Narcissa, taking out her wand to heal it. It faded slightly, leaving behind a sickly yellow patch on her left cheekbone below her slightly swollen eye.

"You look like you need to take a good lie down," the mirror continued in concerned tones.

"I'll be all right," she said, hoping that if she said it enough she might convince the habitually worrying mirror, if she couldn't convince herself.

Lucius had come home for awhile earlier. He mostly stayed in hiding, though she had no idea where, since the 'escape' from prison. Foolish minister – if the prophet heard that he'd been accepting bribes from unsavoury quarters, they'd hang him. Possibly figuratively, if he was lucky.

Every time Lucius came home, she managed to injure herself. Lucius Malfoy would never strike his wife – that was far too unrestrained, far too human for the image of himself that Lucius lived – but somehow, every time he came round, she became clumsy. Something happened every time, seemingly by accident, and her mind was always elsewhere. She always did it to herself – she'd fallen down some stairs, walked into a door, cut herself with a knife and a multitude of other silly things so far, but she always did it to herself.

She didn't particularly want to consider the psychology of it.

Lucius had, without saying anything more incriminating than 'How is Draco?', managed to convey a number of things to her. None of them pleased her. One was that Draco's days as a free man were numbered. Another was that she had to keep him on the straight and narrow. Which itself had another meaning – it meant he wanted her to spy on Draco for him.

If he'd asked a year ago, she wouldn't have felt so conflicted – a year ago, Draco was on exactly the straight and narrow that his father wanted, meaning the dark and winding route to Voldemort. But now…

Now, she could not tell the truth for fear of Draco's life, and she could not lie for fear of her own.

SSSSSSSSS

Draco came for Christmas, and she did not bother to pretend it was because he wanted to. While he was there, an air of loneliness surrounded him, and most of the time when she saw him he paid much more attention to wherever his mind was than to his current setting. She wondered what place – or what person – caused the wistful look that superimposed where he wanted to be on top of the Manor in his imagination.

She tried, inexpertly, to question him, but he became defensive. She did not blame him – after all, was part of her not questioning him so she could have something to say to Lucius? He had told her in his little letter of reminder that he was visiting soon, and he hoped she had fulfilled her duty.

But he had replied so…definitely, so articulately. So different from what he had thought in years past, and so much more himself. What Lucius had failed to notice was that, in everything but appearance, Draco was totally different from him. Lucius was cold, but Draco burned. It comforted her to know that he was far more like her own hot-blooded family than Lucius' crystalline ancestors.

It also plunged her into further dilemma. She could not tell half-truths and gloss over things to hide who Draco really was, because suddenly, someone or something had given him free reign to burn, and nothing could control him. She knew he would not hide from his father, and she knew that it could get him killed. Or, perhaps, both of them.

So she was left with one option, the only one she'd ever had. She stood up and hurled Lucius' letter into the fire.

It was time for her last stand, the only one she'd ever had the courage to make. This time, the stakes were higher than they'd ever been. Her death was a certainty, nomatter what she did. At least this way, she would not die for nothing.

SSSSSSSSS

The bit of parchment that lay on his desk. In moments he wanted to tear it to shreds, because Harry was so whimsical and fractal and _direct_ that Draco had no idea how to reply. He didn't want to rip it to shreds, because he had a little piece of Harry written on that parchment and he'd been wrapping himself in pieces of Harry to stop the Manor from getting through.

He was used to composing letters with the idea in his mind of what effect they would have – anger or pleasure or something else, it didn't matter because the idea was to manipulate people's emotions, and true mastery was wrapping people round your little finger by simply telling them the truth.

He'd been taught how to do that, or rather he'd watched and relearned, because that talent was in his blood. Filthy, dark, pure Malfoy blood.

Now, this letter having no such manipulative purpose– he was lost, lost for words.

He thought perhaps he might be a little more inspired if he actually had a quill and some parchment out in front of him. After awhile of staring at them, however, he concluded that he wasn't getting anywhere, and realised he'd been trying to write without any ink.

He shook his head, and began with the parts you put on every letter.

_Harry,_

_Is that supposed to mean that you are fine, or that you aren't? I don't think you have a state that reads 'fine'. Perhaps you've spent so long telling people that you're 'fine' that you meant how you normally are._

_Which isn't 'fine' for either of us. _

_Stop feeling sorry for Slytherins; it's pathetic, for you and for us. Honestly, sometimes you're so Gryffindor it's painful to watch. If you start feeling sorry for Zabini I'll have to kill you as well. It could be worse: I suppose you could be feeling sorry for yourself – and that would be pathetic. I've spent an inordinate amount of time doing that lately. _

_Draco_

He looked down at the senseless, weird mess that he'd produced, and sent it.

SSSSSSSSS

Christmas came and went. Tentative cards from Ron and Hermione lay at the bottom of his trunk, and Draco's strange letter was charmed unreadable in his desk drawer. He was pacing; always pacing – trying to read – his attention wandering – skipping – and he would stare into space – distracted – but then his mind would flutter on – his fatal concentration gone – his thoughts whimsical, curious and useless – fidgeting – it wasn't boredom – he was too awake – it was driving him to distraction – and he was doing it to himself.

Doing it to himself because he could not let himself think about_pine for_Draco the whole holiday. The more he tried to keep his thoughts focussed, the more they wandered, and the more he forbade himself from thinking about anythng related to Draco, the more he became the subject of his broken contemplations. Once Christmas was over, he counted the days.

_Four days._

He tidied his section of the dorm again until everything was in a place, and recast different locking and concealment spells on his possesions. He actually turned up and mealtimes, but ate nothing and appeared to do nothing.

_Three days_.

He returned to pacing but would often stop to dream, leaning against a wall or suddenly stopping in the middle of a room looking miles away. He wondered where Malfoy Manor was.

_Two days_

He finally gave in and he let his distracted thoughts follow their desired course. He fell back on his bed, fully clothed and unmoving, staring at the ceiling and letting the hours slip past.

_One Day_

He sent back Draco's letter. He had no idea what was happening to him.

SSSSSSSSS

_See you in two days tomorrow later soon_

_Missed you,_

_Harry_

Staring at the answer scribbled on the back of his letter, he suddenly realised and fell back on his bed, looking at the ceiling. He was going back to Hogwarts tomorrow – he'd forgotten. So busy wishing he was back that he hadn't counted down the days, and couldn't remember any of his presents.

_Missed you_. Brutal honesty was Harry's style, but he could almost hear the tentative way that Harry wrote the phrase. As if he didn't know whether that would cross some invisible line that defines a friend.

But Draco clutched the words and stared at it, imagining Harry saying it – and him echoing, hoping it would mean the same to Harry as it did to him. He and Harry were not friends – he didn't understand what they were, but it wasn't friends. Something that there wasn't a word for, but it meant dependence and independence, saying everything and saying nothing, and something else that bound them together despite their differences – because of their differences.

They were a walking oxymoron, and at the same time they complemented each other.

Draco fastened the trunk that he hadn't bothered unpacking in the first place, and counted down the agonizing hours that slipped past like water in almost a trance, hardly noticing the change of scenery from the manor, to the station, to the train and finally to the carriages. His breath seemed to quicken and his sharp cheekbones acquired a pink tinge as the carriages drew closer to Hogwarts, though he never knew from the inside of blurred dreams that he couldn't believe were reality.

SSSSSSSSS

Nymphadora Tonks was doing the much-reviled job of paper-pushing. Sorting through photos, case notes, and pieces of evidence to find links and 'possible lines of enquiry' – or so the Department Heads said. Acutally it was more like searching through the piles of dog-eared, coffee-stained items to chuck out most of the useless stuff and sort the rest into the Filing Cabinet of Forgotten Memos. No one ever looked in it, except to put things in it. It amounted to the same thing as binning them, but took more effort and had to be done, otherwise the Manager's Committee (or the Waffles, depending on whether or not you were a member of this selective club. You had to pass an intelligence test to get in, or so it was said. Apparently, most of them had actually failed) pitched a hissy fit.

Tonks had to admit, they looked fairly menacing with those briefcases.

She was just about to fall asleep despite the many empty polystyrene coffee cups which littered her desk, when she discovered a photo which had obviously been placed there by mistake, as it looked hot off the press. It showed the body of a blonde woman, with the word 'UNIDENTIFIED' scrawled in red underneath. Tonks squinted at it, sure she recognized it.

It was Narcissa Malfoy.

A/N: What do you think?

Edit: does it really annoy anyone else when the edit and preview thing doesn't save your edits properly, and you end up with an incomprehensible mess?


	9. Imaginary World

I'm Back! I've managed to buy myself a laptop, so I have access to the internet much more easily, which is good news, but took a long time to sort out. I also wanted to make this chapter the best it can be because it's quite important, so I rewrote it several hunred times. Lots of slash in this one. Enjoy! Reviews are lovely - mwah! to reviewers.

The Dark Is Cold

Chapter Nine - _Imaginary World_

He wasn't going to watch the clock and count the seconds, or even stare out the window to the path up to the gate and he really, definitely, wasn't going to go down and wait for him. He knew _exactly _how pathetic that would be, because he'd done things like that before in a different life, but he wasn't pathetic any more. Or tried not to be - he thought perhaps he had gone to far the other way and that is failing, just a little. But then, trying to be perfect and failing is what people are all about, and the most telling thing about a person is how they fail.

He knew - he knew that his failures were _spectacular_.

He went down to the space in the Entrance Hall near the door that nobody ever noticed : it was just a perfectly ordinary piece of wall jutting out from the side, wasn't it? People's eyes glossed over it, and their minds filled in the illusion of bare stone and dusty floor, regardless of what was actually there.

Even if what was really there was Harry Potter, with striking green eyes and stark waxen skin and jet black hair. He had to give them credit for being so insular, so occupied with themselves and whatever marvellously uninteresting things were happening to them that everything else was almost ignored, and filled in with a picture of what they thought it should be. It was all neat and tidy and proper, nice and easy for them to comprehend - they don't know what it's like to have to constantly watch your back when you know that one slip, and you could be dead! It reminded him dreadfully of his Aunt Petunia.

The huge doors opened, and the sound of hundreds of excited students came through them. The students themselves followed in a great food and walked past him, talking and laughing and shouting in a huge din that echoed round the school and removed the sense of it being too quiet. But the image of the crowd seemed to flicker before his eyes, like a movie where you can't help but remember that it isn't real. His pulse began to race - sweat on his forehead slicked his hair and ran down his nose, making his glasses slip. He stood stock still, but in his head, he was running.

More people poured through the doors, and Draco did not come. Reasoning and logic had left long ago, so Harry was walking a knife-edge of instinct and half-conscious thoughts normally repressed. He wanted to run out of the doors, shout for Draco, do anything but stand still while his blood pounded with adrenaline. Some vestige of sanity held him back.

The last of the students trickled through the doors. Harry rested his forehead against the cool stone wall, trying to silence the feverish rushing behind it. He wished fervently to escape from this reality into dreams, or from this dream into reality. He felt as though he was dreaming when a blond-haired figure walked unsteadily into the entrance hall, looking distracted and vaguely unreal. But the stone was rough and lukewarm now against his hot brow, and only his Voldemort-dreams_realities_were ever so vivid.

Draco was blank, and looked as if he could not possibly believe the scene that greeted him, but was too far gone to treat it with anything other than vague surprise. Harry stepped out from behind the wall, saying nothing because he couldn't think of anything to say.

"Harry!" Draco walked over to him slowly, carefully, as though he were a mirage who would disappear. "I - I'm back," he said wonderingly.

In some other world, Harry would have smiled.

"Missed you," he said, and it was exactly the tentative way that Draco had imagined him saying it.

"Missed you too," said Draco, trying to sound conversational, or at least indifferent, knowing he had failed and finding himself not caring.

It wasn't true. Harry hadn't _missed_ Draco - to miss someone was to wish they were there, to count the days till you next met, to be depressed when the time apart seemed too long - no. Harry had been ripped into two painful halves, had lain on his bed willing the hours to slip past as they went with agonizing slowness, had thought of him and been reminded of him in every minute, memories and images stalling his mind, revelling in pain and the inability to think a single other thought than that of Draco. No word, no phrase in any language said what Harry meant as he stood, senses overwhelmed, staring at Draco.

Their minds were not organised enough for them to have flexed hundreds of muscles to close the gap of a few paces, so it must have been the physical pull to each other that drew them together in lieu of movement. Draco gave a small sigh as he rested his cheek against Harry's neck and closed his eyes. Harry closed his too and slid his arms around Draco's waist. It might have been a long time, or just a second, that they stayed that way in silence, while everyone else giggled and talked and shouted and caused mayhem with their friends somewhere - corridors, floors and worlds away.

Draco shifted, lifting his head and opening his eyes to look at Harry. Neither of them gave any sort of expression, but it was telling that there was no pain and anger which had previously aged and hardened the lines of their faces. Reaching up to brush away a too-long lock of Draco's hair, Harry realised he had only inches to reach. Inches became fewer - their noses brushed and almost a smile flickered at the corner of his mouth. Draco ran a finger down the side of Harry's face, past fluttering eyes and down a flushed cheek, and removed Harry's glasses with his other hand, looking in his eyes with an expression akin to wonder. The angular face in front of Harry softened, as seen by his imperfect vision. He breathed, and felt Draco's invisible lashes brush his face.

It seemed perfectly natural that Draco close the last few millimeters and press his lips to Harry's. It was perfectly natural, to Harry's mind, that Draco's lips were warm and chapped, and the inside of his mouth _hot_ when he tilted his head slightly and touched Harry's tongue with his. It was perfectly natural, and even vital, that Harry pull Draco closer til their bodies press together, eliciting a quiet intake of breath from both of them.

Then Draco rested his forehead in the crook of Harry's neck, and Harry could hardly see how this could be _allowed_, that Draco was allowing it and even wanting it. He knew he would have to return to reality in a little while, but right now it didn't matter. Right now he was holding Draco Malfoy, and it was probably the best feeling in the world.

SSSSSSSSS

Ron …worried. He shouldn't: he knew that you were supposed to learn from other people's mistakes - Hermione had proved beyond doubt that it helped no one and hurt herself. Ron tried to comfort her but he thought that she was falling apart too, slowly and less dramatically than Harry, but that didn't mean it was any easier to put her back together again. It only meant that he had another person whom he didn't know how to help, and the feeling of helplessness that had driven Hermione to such guilt was a familiar feeling. He did his best - it was all he could do, and it wasn't nearly enough.

So he had given up worrying about Harry, even if Hermione still couldn't see that it didn't do any good. Harry hadn't spoken two words to her since she had asked about Malfoy. Ron knew, somehow, that there was a lot about Malfoy that he didn't know; Harry knew, Harry was a part of it. Perhaps he wasn't totally blind about his best friend. Perhaps he had known him just a little, or perhaps a small remnant of the Harry he had known lingered.

No, worrying hadn't done Harry any good and yet, Ron thought, here he was. Worrying.

He worried about Ginny. Ginny and her long list of boyfriends; Ginny and her strange little fancies. Harmless little fancies, he had thought, but now she lived mostly in her little dream world, her little game of pretend. Ron thought she was like a small child clinging onto games when it's time to grow up, but she couldn't grow up. Part of her was stuck, mourning for a bit of her lost when Voldemort took her. He worried that she hadn't given up on Harry. She was afraid - terribly, wrenchingly afraid and breaking everything in her not to show it. She clung to the idea of Harry saving her, though Ron didn't know why she felt she couldn't help herself. Harry was her storybook hero come to rescue her, kind and good and strong and brave, when actually he was -

He couldn't finish the thought: there was a mental block somewhere that prevented him from knowing. Perhaps it was a good thing. Thinking any more about what Harry was now, was a path he refused to walk down. It took him places that were far too dark, that only Harry seemed to be able to frequent unscathed. _No_, he thought. _Not unscathed_.

Ron doesn't want Ginny to carry out this idea of her going to the ball with Harry. He doesn't want to think about why his sister shouldn't go out with his best friend, someone he trusted - _trusts_ - more than anyone else. Perhaps there is a little comfort in the fact that Ron knows he will not look at her. And perhaps there is not. Ron knows she will ask Harry to the ball, and he will refuse her. Ron knows that her dream world will be shattered, and Harry will not rescue her. Ron knows that it will push her beyond terror, beyond pain and beyond tears to a dead, soulless place.

The place where Harry went. Harry is the strongest person Ron knows, and he could keep going. He was used to that after a lifetime of it, and perhaps he even began to like it there in a twisted way. Ginny would not break into a million pieces - she would go there, too far and perhaps never come back. Perhaps someone would be able to put her together again if she were to break. Perhaps there would have been some hope, someone who knew how to mend broken minds.

No one can bring people back from the places they should never have to go.

Disaster was coming for Ginny; for him, for Harry, for Hermione, for the whole world. And once again, he couldn't do anything about it.

SSSSSSSSS

"Ron! I want to show you something!" She told him, smiling mischievously.

"What is it?"

"Come and see!"

She grasped his arm and pulled him up to her dorm. There was no one else there, and she only told him to turn round for a minute. He turned back round, and she smiled at his sharp intake of breath.

"Isn't it beautiful?" She twirled around to show him a white muslin dress, with a long skirt and gold stitching. It made her look like a princess, or a bride. "I'm going to wear it to the dance - I'm going with Harry." She took his hand and spun round underneath it, dancing and laughing and swishing her skirts.

She looked so happy, and Ron hadn't the heart to break her world of pretend.


	10. Unexpected

Hi! The word 'late' doesn't even begin to explain the depth and gravity of my lateness, and for that I am very sorry. Things have been absolute pandemonium since about christmas, on the story and muse front as well as on the RL front, but now I _finally_ have a holiday! And a coherent muse! Yay! I hope you enjoy... Reviewers you are gold dust! That is, rare but very valuable. Thank you so much for taking the time to review because it makes me feel like writing this story is all worthwhile and also that I'm maybe writing something decent.

The Dark Is Cold

Chapter Ten – _Unexpected..._

Draco went to his room, stopping at the bathroom to splash his face with water, ready to collapse with fatigue and the reeling of his mind. He wanted to lie down and attempt to steady the world (_and think about Harry and the touch of his mouth and the warmth of his skin and the way he clung to your shirt and you could think about it all day and all night...)_, but there was someone sitting on his bed.

"Pansy?" He wanted to ask if she was all right, but the words stuck in his throat. Of course she wasn't all right.

"Draco," she said, standing up with a start as if she'd been waiting a long time for him to arrive. Her hands were visibly shaking, and her expression was intense, bleached skin covered in a feverish sheen of sweat.

"What do you want?" he said quietly, hoping to calm her.

"I came to remind you what you have to do." she spoke quickly but her voice was surprisingly steady. She took a gulp of air and continued. "Zabini is so – so_ stupid _... he doesn't know what to do, he doesn't know how to manipulate people, not like you did, with, with hardly _anything_ only, maybe, a look – he has stupid thugs – like yours, I suppose – but he's trying to terrorize us into submission," She broke off and laughed wildly in rapid bursts, breathing shakily between them. "He he can't make a statement, he has no subtlety––"

"You mean I should overthrow him."

"_Yes_." Hoarseness overtook her voice with the force of her words and made it drop several octaves. He wondered if screaming had caused it, then felt sick at the thought.

"He can't go on like this. I told you the line had to be drawn somewhere," she shivered, and wiped her mouth with her sleeve. "And I was the one to draw it. Since then – no one's prepared to just surrender anymore – we're not a bunch of bloody Hufflepuffs! Blaise isn't smarter or more determined than us, he was just a lucky, lucky bastard, and lots of us supported him at first, but now, now, we all hate him and we won't do what he says and with enough of us it'll be damn, damn well, bloody _easy_ to chuck him off his little thrown..." she ran out of breath, sweat running down her forehead and nose and into overbright eyes. "We wouldn't need you, even – but then, then, it would all happen again with some other lucky little upstart, because you see, we can't lead ourselves, we _can't_, not all wanting to climb the ladder to the top and prepared to stand over everyone in our way, because we're no good once we get there. Not – not except you. Maybe it's because you're more even more of a cool detached cunning bastard, but you know how to – to _stay_ at the top once you get there, and , then, what to do." She was speaking faster and faster, cutting off Draco's circulation with her bony fingers. He let her cling on. He hadn't the heart to shake her off; it would be like cutting someone's lifeline.

She had faded – lost a lot of weight, her skin had lost most of its colour except for the unnatural fevered flush of her cheeks, and her hair was lank with split ends. Her skin looked stretched across what had been a rounded face, but was now deeply shadowed where her flesh had been, under her cheekbones and eyes. Her eyes, though – Draco had not expected this. If anything, he had expected her eyes to be dull and lifeless, had expected her to be quiet and withdrawn, not intense, _burning_ hot with the force of her emotions. Her sea-coloured eyes were too bright, and they dominated her face, looking too large beside her other whithered features

He should have expected Pansy to do the unexpected.

_What is it?_, she said with a searching look and sweaty grip.

"I'm thinking." he said. He needed a plan, and someone – he needed _Harry_.

"What did you say?" _Oh shit. _He hadn't meant to say it aloud.

"Harry will help," he said with conviction.

"Why? Aside from you, he hates all of us – though he used to hate you..." she frowned.

"NoYou would know if he hated you – for him, hatred is _personal._ So he would have come _personally_ and done you in by now if he hated you. He hates Blaise – which is surprising, because Blaise is still alive." He thought for a moment. "So he probably already has a plan."

Pansy turned her head to the side. "He's a Gryffindor?"

"The opposite. He should've been in Slytherin, except his sense of self-preservation is nonexistent."

She started laughing. "The Boy Who Lived, in the Dark Lord's house?" She broke off and looked sharply at Draco for a minute. "Everything might have been – different. Would have been. But you mustn't think about it, no what ifs, only now. Now and you and him and us. That's what's important."

"Yes," he said, the gist of what she meant permeating through fractured sentences. She examined him for a minute longer, then nodded and left. He almost said, she could always come here, to be safe. He might have said it before. But this Pansy, this thin, fragile, fractal, _strong, determined _Pansy didn't need him to say it, wouldn't want him to say it.

He lay back on his bed, and the world swam into dreams. Dreams in bits and pieces, from the intense ecstasy of kissing Harry to all-consuming terror, lost somewhere in the Manor can't escape can't escape – Blaise dead blood dripping down Draco's hands relief and terror, Pansy together again but scared, scared, running away – no, no a scream and its hers – but she's all right, still there can see the wall behind her through her _why_ she's a ghost, she's dead, she's thin and broken again, but she's not scared anymore, she's stopped running and she tries to hold his wrist – it goes straight through but she's laughing, and it's cold, so cold, can't move can't move –

He woke up, freezing cold with the covers on the floor, still dressed in his uniform.

He had no idea whether the dream was good or bad.

SSSSSSSSS

Harry abruptly shut his book. He was far too distracted to read, never mind retain anything. He ran his fingers over his lips again and closed his eyes, losing himself for a moment. Well, at least he knew the cause of his distraction; He must have conjured the memory of Draco's touch a hundred times over the past hour. It wasn't healthy, he knew – but then he had spent two weeks wishing away every waking moment until Draco returned, so dwelling a little on what had been a moment of pure bliss was forgivable.

He got up, stretched stiff muscles, put away his book and quickly left through the library doors. He made a swift pace in an effort to clear his head, ignoring the turning heads.

"Harry," A voice – he couldn't identify the speaker and there was no time to think – he spun swiftly around to face it and drew his wand in a fiendishly swift motion. When it became apparent that no one was going to attack him, he allowed himself to be angry. Who dared disturb him? Who dared to challenge him? _Who dared say his name?_ Whoever had spoken was not someone who he had alowed to use his name, or to stop him in the corridor.

Ginny Weasley. He lowered his wand. She wasn't likely to hex him, but what did she want?

"What?" he didn't bother to keep the annoyance out of his voice.

She came slowly closer, a wide smile on her face. He started, noticing her dilated pupils and dizzy path. She looked as if she were dreaming. "Harry," she repeated. "I was wondering – would you like to come to the ball with me?"

"The ball?"

She flinched, looking hurt. "Dumbledore announced it at dinner the day we returned. He said it was to raise spirits." Which explained why Harry hadn't heard about it. "It would...raise spirits...if Harry Potter came to the ball and danced." She came closer again and took his hands. "It would make me happy if you came with me."

Draco closed his eyes and turned away, his eyes stinging. He clenched his fists and tried to gain control of himself as he left. He didn't need to hear anymore.

Ginny leaned closer, and Harry realised what she was about to do. He put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her away. "No, Ginny."

"But Harry, I love you; you know that – "

"I won't go to the ball with you. And you may think – you don't know me at all, you're deluding yourself." He looked at her closely, watching the hope and faint delirium on her face. He was barely conscious of using Occlumency and practically didn't have to; her emotions were so apparent.

"Why? Harry, don't you love me? I thought you loved me – are you going with someone else?"

Harry started. He couldn't go with Draco, and he wouldn't want to go with anyone else. "That's _nothing_ to do with you. Suffice it to say that the person I am bears no relation to your fairy tale Boy-Who-Lived. It would be best if you left me alone and didn't talk to me again."

"Harry – "

"_Don't_ call me that. Come out of you silly little fantasy world, Ginevra! Voldemort is back, _Tom_ is back, we are in a War, even though everyone seems to be trying to pretend that it isn't happening. You've got to wake up and realise what's going on! But I don't think I can convince people on my own, and it would be worse anyway if I could..." He broke off.

"I don't understand," she was pleading now.

"No," he said. "Perhaps you don't. Maybe you can't. It doesn't matter – just stay away from me."

He couldn't stand to look into her face, full as it was of conviction, hope, dreamy happiness and now, it was cracked, letting through hurt. It was best she knew now – he had no time to fulfill her happily ever after, and could have done so only with disgust. He couldn't stand the thought of her, of touching her, of being subjected to her adoring gaze. He turned and walked away – he didn't care what she thought of him anymore. It probably wouldn't make any difference anyway, her perceptions were so distorted.

SSSSSSSSS

In her room, Ginevra Weasley pulled out a beautiful dress of floaty white muslin and satin. Tears dripped down her face as she tried to rip it in two, but it was too strong and she screamed her frustration as the material left red marks on her hands. She put it down, but a moment later she picked up her wand and turned it in her hands speculatively. Training her wand on the dress, she transfigured it into a very different sort of dress. It wasn't a dress in which she could have accompanied Harry, but then, that wasn't necessary any more. She could find another escort.

She went to her mirror and wiped away her tears. She covered the tear-tracks, and pulled out her wand again to fix her hair. She was going to stop crying so much. She wasn't going to let anyone know if she hurt.

SSSSSSSSS

Hermione was pulled out of her reverie when she passed a painting that she didn't recognise, to the realisation that she didn't know where she was. It took her a few seconds of thinking to work out that she was going the back way down to the dungeons, although she thought she had been heading for the entrance hall. Not many people used the back way, because it was dark and longer than the ordinary way, with no classrooms, but Hermione came sometimes when she had some extra time: she appreciated the quiet.

Now, however, she could hear voices. They were a few corridors away, but the sound carried in the silence.

"Why are you avoiding me?" She started, and almost dropped the books she was carrying. Harry's voice...but who was he bothering to spend a whole sentence on, when he wouldn't say a single word to his friends?

The response was quick and angry, and it seemed to fade in and out of focus as it became loud enough for her to make out the words, and then muffled again. "You agreed ...didn't even know there was a Ball ... did you kiss her?" She couldn't put name to the voice, and didn't even vaguely recognise it, even though most of the voices in Hogwarts were familiar to her.

"No ...the Ball ...didn't hear it all ..."

"I heard enough!" The voice was louder, but the next few exchanges were inaudible and she wandered closer. She turned a corner, and she could suddenly hear.

"Please, Draco, I – "

"No, Harry. Just – just leave me alone." Hermione dropped her books in shock as she saw Malfoy stumbling backwards and Harry standing, still and uncharacteristically helpless, watching Malfoy leave with a desolate expression. He turned around suddenly when he heard the clatter, and she felt the terrible glare from his eyes seeming to rip her apart.

"Hermione," his voice was completely blank, and that was worse than anything. "You won't tell anyone." It didn't even attempt to be a request. It was an order, and the flat tone in which it was delivered made it impossible for her to even consider disobeying. He swept past her, and by the time she turned round, he had disappeared.


	11. Shock to the System I

I'm not late! It's been one helluva month since I last updated, but somehow, through exams, a funeral, and other things which interrupt my writing time, I am not late. Well, not by much, anyway. As usual, hugs to all reviewers, you know who you are and thank you so much for giving up a few minutes to make a humble author very happy. On with the story!

The Dark Is Cold

Chapter Eleven – _Shock to the System I_

Harry didn't return to the Common Room until sometime in the hours still too small to be called morning. He had been wandering in circles since the argument, in an attempt to pull his thoughts back into some semblance of order, and ultimately to avoid Gryffindor tower until everyone in it was asleep. No one was there to notice him blunder through the portrait hole in an accidental fashion, except Hermione. She noticed him collapse into an armchair and stare at nothing, although as she did so she couldn't shake the thought that it was only an illusion, because no sound accompanied his entrance. She cautiously came over and sat as close as she dared; instead of being startled, as she had expected, he didn't react at all, as if he was unaware of her presence, or simply ignoring her. She couldn't tell which was more likely, nor which she would prefer it to be.

"Harry." he didn't look up, but she knew he had heard. The air shimmered briefly with a spell of some kind, and she spared a moment trying to figure out which one, with no success. There was a silence, and she tried again.

"Harry, I know––"

"You know nothing." He said flatly. She bristled for a moment – she was not used to being told she was ignorant.

"Well, tell me then." she said, for she knew he was right. All her knowledge amounted to was a flawed understanding of Harry, and a half-overheard confrontation.

"It is none of your fucking business." he said, voice completely even, which frightened her more than anger would have. He still had not even glanced in her direction.

"But I'm––" _Your friend._ "I just want to know _why_––" _We weren't good enough_ ...

"Because nobody is like Draco." She hadn't expected an answer, and certainly not the one she had received.

"That's true – I don't think anybody else could deliver a cutting insult as _effectively _as Malfoy can. Tell me, does he still do that, now that you're..." she hesitated. "Friends?" Harry gave a cynical ghost of a laugh, and she jumped, startled. She couldn't understand any of his responses: they were not only unexpected but cryptic and discomfiting.

"He's corrupting you, Harry, can't you see it?" She raised her voice a little in a desperate attempt to understand the incomprehensible.

A raised eyebrow. "Actually, I think it might have been the other way round." His sudden dry amusement was unsettling enough, but it swiftly turned to anger. "You see nothing, Hermione. If you hadn't chanced to walk in right then, you wouldn't have known at graduation. You haven't seen us; you're making stupid assumptions based n stupider prejudices! You never knew me, and you certainly don't know Draco." she shivered, sure that the temperature had fallen, perhaps from the tone of his voice alone.

"But surely..." she pressed. "Surely it was him who taught you the..._Dark Arts_." She couldn't keep the insecure, questioning inflection out of her voice any more than she could avoid whispering 'Dark Arts', or bring herself to say Malfoy's name without dislike and disgust.

"I did it myself. I don't like him to see."

Hermione stopped trying to predict what Harry was going to say. His wand levitated out of his pocket, and hovered in the air above his fingers. It began to spin, and Harry slowly seemed to relax watching it.

"Didn't, that is," he amended. His wand dropped to the floor and his head fell forward into his hands.

"I don't like it," she declared, stupidly, trying to fill the silence where she couldn't think what to say.

His head lifted, and he looked directly at her for the first time. The effect was the same as if he had punched her in the stomach.

"Goddamn you! I don't care whether you happen to like it or not. It's nothing to do with you!" She was frozen under his glare, and it took several minutes for her to recover her voice and remember that this was Harry, who would never hurt her. Even if it was difficult to believe when he glared at her as if her could curse her with his eyes.

"What is it that you want, Harry? You don't seem to know ..."

"I know exactly what I want. I want you to go away and stop interfering and questioning me, and I, I want Draco _right now_."

She was hurt by that, that he wanted Draco and not her, but something stalled her tongue. Maybe it was because she was shaking. Maybe, though, it was because she could see Harry shaking – could

see blood running down his fingers from where his unbitten nails dug into his palms.

"Let me see," she said, making every effort to still her wavering voice. "Then––"

He looked at her again for a second, but he was not glaring this time. Then he left, and she sighed. She had thought that she could get some answers out of Harry, to see if she understood more. All she had was more questions and more confusion.

SSSSSSSSS

Harry almost didn't understand what he'd done.

He understood the part where Draco got mad at him because he thought Harry had accepted Ginny, even though he hadn't, because he hadn't eavesdropped on the important part where Harry told Ginny that he wasn't interested in as nice a way as he knew how. Which wasn't nice at all, but was at least better than 'fuck off', which would have cost much less effort.

He didn't understand why Draco was still mad at him, even after he'd explained what had really happened. This was what had been tearing him apart for three days, though he had lost all sense of time and only knew it had been three days because of the changes in the light.

The thing he hated was that he'd spent so long obsessing over Draco, had kissed him and gone to heaven for a day, but then heaven had spat out the tainted Boy Who Lived and he was back to missing him, but it was worse because he kept tormenting himself with memories of a perfect kiss that he didn't know if he would ever experience again. It meant that he was in a state of almost catatonia, unable to move off the covers of his bed for hours, torturing himself with masochistic recollections. Finally, a last spark of sanity pulled him into action.

When someone knocked on their Common Room door, none of the Slytherins expected it to be Harry Potter. The small First Year who went to answer it returned looking terrified out of his wits, muttering "Potter.." , "Malfoy..." and "s-stare..." in a squeaky but mostly unintelligible whisper.

"I'll go," said Theodore Nott. He was intrigued, especially by the mention of Draco and Potter. They had seemed to be paying little attention to each other this year, which had always seemed a little too unlikely and out of character for him. Blaise nodded his approval.

"What?" he said, quietly, arms folded across his chest in a habitual defensive gesture.

"I need to speak to Draco Malfoy." said Harry. A year ago, the boy in front of him would have been nothing more than a vaguely familiar face and perhaps a first name, but Harry had seen to it that he knew about everyone in his year. He could list several facts he had observed about Theodore Nott, one of them being his quiet, unobtrusive demeanour combined with a dangerously sharp intelligence. He was someone to watch out for.

Nott nodded guardedly, and opened the door far enough to allow Harry in. Blaise gave him a questioning glare when he walked in with Harry Potter following, and most of the Common Room were eavesdropping as subtly as they could, with varying success.

"He wants to speak to Malfoy." said Nott. Blaise snorted loudly.

"Hope he comes back bloody, then."

Theo decided to give Draco the courtesy of knocking before he entered, not that it seemed to matter to Draco recently. He was lying spread-eagled on his bed, fully clothed but unkempt, staring at the green curtain over his bed which was blocking his view of the ceiling.

"Draco," he said.

"What?" He didn't move.

"Someone wants to speak to you," Draco sat up and hugged his knees to his chest. "It's Potter."

"Harry..." something ghosted over his features, but Theo couldn't place it.

"He's outside. Merlin knows how he found the door."

Draco rested his forehead against his knees. "What's he want?"

"I don't know." Which was puzzling him almost as much as Draco's strange reaction.

"Tell him...tell him I don't have anything to say to him." Draco's voice tapered off into a whisper.

Theo shook his head. "Yes you do; you've been moping for three days and I assume it's because of him." he made some quick deductions, praying he hadn't got the wrong end of the stick which would make Draco fly into a rage. Then again, he thought, looking at the blond boy, rage might be better than this.

"I wasn't _moping_!" he was irritated, but not angry.

"What were you doing, then? Thinking about the meaning of life?" Theo recrossed his arms and tilted his head to one side.

"Yes."

Theo sighed. "Don't be difficult, Draco. Don't do this to yourself – or him."

"Him?"

He rolled his eyes. "Yes, him, Potter. He looks like a ghost, if you ask me. Or maybe a demeguise."

"Ha – yeah. He's good at not being seen. Maybe...maybe too good."

"And you know?" Theo quirked an eyebrow.

Draco looked up defiantly. "Yes."

Theo hesitated. He wasn't sure if he wanted to know the answer to his next question. "What's he to you, anyway?"

Draco didn't reply. There wasn't even any acknowledgment that he'd heard. _He doesn't know_, Theo thought. _He really doesn't know_. There was a silence, in which Draco looked lost somewhere else.

"Go and talk to him." Theo said, suddenly. Draco looked up sharply.

"No," he said. "Then I'll remember."

"Remember what?"

"That he doesn't care."

Theo shook his head. "He isn't out there scaring half the Common Room because he felt like stopping by."

"Scaring half the Common Room?"

"You can't have forgotten what that stare looks like."

"No," he said. "I don't think I could forget."

"I'm letting him in," Theo said. "And you can talk, or fight, or fuck, or whatever it is that you do. I don't really care. Then you can stop staying in bed and moping, or pining or, I suppose, thinking about the meaning of life."

"Harry?"

"Him too. He looks like he's forgotten how to stand up."

"Right."

Theo left.

Harry walked in, looking at the floor and leaning heavily against the wall, breathing as if he resented the effort it took. "Draco," he addressed the carpet.

"Harry––"

"No, let me explain. I meant it when I said you hadn't seen it all. I don't want anything to do with her, and do you know why? Because I have you." He stopped. "Thought I did, anyway."

Draco couldn't say anything. He wanted to say sorry, pull Harry close and forget that the whole mixup with words had ever happened, but he couldn't move.

Harry nodded, and turned to leave.

"Don't you _dare_ walk out of that door." Draco found his voice again, awkwardly, and it had come out all wrong but at least Harry had stopped and wasn't going to leave anymore.

"Isn't that what you wanted? And you always get what you want," he remembered. The echo of a laugh, dry and humourless, but still a laugh from Harry. Better than dark, brooding depression. Harry looked at him, and he couldn't have stopped himself from walking up and seizing Harry's wrists.

"Yes," he said from between his teeth. Harry kissed him hard, Draco still clutching his wrists hard enough to stop the blood and turn the skin whiter than it was already. It made a total contrast to their earlier kisses, gentle, burning with a tentative desire. But they had dreamed of doing this, of kissing so hard with their bodies pressed together, finding out exactly how they fitted – and they fitted. Perfectly.

A/N: I really enjoyed writing this chapter, especially the Hermione/Harry interaction. I hope you all liked it. Next up is the Yule Ball...

In other news, I now have a Beta-reader, otherwise known as Cinnamon sakaki. Hopefully she'll help me to keep on track and shout at me to make me get off my lazy arse and write.


	12. Shock to the System II

**A/N: **I was going to do a complete revision on this story - which I suppose is technically a first draft - but I've moved on too far. I thought I should at least post the rest of the story, which is finished, rather than leave you all hanging.

Hermione clutched Ron's arm as they walked into the Great Hall. Not hard enough to be panicked, but just a light pressure to express that she was anxious about something, despite trying to look relaxed. It was nothing new to Ron: sometimes he thought that he and Hermione communicated more through their respective gestures and touches than through words. The anxiety was nothing new either: she'd been in an almost constant state of agitation all year, more or less apparent, but always there. Lately it had been more, and usually, it was all about Harry.

"Have you seen––"

"No, I haven't." She didn't have to finish for him to know exactly what she meant.

"I can't understand why you hardly ever see him outside of classes. I mean, don't you ever see him in the dorms? It's as if he doesn't even sleep there!" She turned very pale all of a sudden, and Ron wondered what horrible thought had occurred to her.

"What is it?"

"Nothing ...." She said distractedly. He didn't believe her, but she wasn't going to tell him – not now, anyway. He changed the subject.

"Harry does sleep in the dorms."

Hermione frowned thoughtfully, but the colour slowly faded back into her face and her hand on his arm stopped gripping it quite so tightly. "How do you know?" She asked, after a minute of thinking.

Ron shifted uncomfortably. "His clothes are still there."

He didn't want to say that he'd searched through Harry's things to find something that would bely his consistent non-appearance and the bed which didn't look slept in; something that he could hold onto and say, "This means that Harry's still here." He hadn't found anything, but he supposed that since Harry's clothes, trunk, quills and parchment were there, he must spend at least some time in the dorms.

Ron hated all the tiptoeing around. Why could Hermione not just admit that she was worried about Harry? Why the underhanded questioning, her refusal to tell him anything, and the increasingly strange nature of the questions? He could listen while she talked out her worries, like they used to, and then thy wouldn't be so worrying anymore. That sort of thing didn't happen anymore, not when they had so much on their minds, trying to hold it together so hard that if they even thought about worries or failing or falling apart then they would.

"I wonder if Harry's coming." Hermione said speculatively, but not sounding particularly hopeful.

"It's always about Harry, isn't it?" Ron snapped, not really angry at her or even at Harry, but just angry, and lacking anyone else to take it out on.

"If that's the way you feel, then..." she stopped. "He's your best friend, you know." A month ago that would have been a reprimand; now, it was more like a plea.

"Maybe you'd rather be here with him standing beside you, and not me, since you spend so much time thinking about him." He said bitterly.

"No," she said insistently. "I'd rather he were here on my other side, with someone

on his arm. I wanted to come with you, Ron. Why is that so hard for you to believe?"

Ron was torn between being convinced that all she thought about was Harry, and cautious relief. Well covered, Hermione, he thought. He wondered if Harry had taught her how to do that, but dismissed his speculations as paranoia.

Hermione had learned about secrets all on her own.

Ron was searching for Harry on Hermione's behest. He wasn't particularly optimistic about finding

him, but he had to know or spend the whole evening wondering about him, so he'd given in. He had

made a cursory check of the refreshments table and the dance floor, not really expecting that Harry would be in such public places, but wanting to do a thorough job for his own peace of mind. He scoured the crowds by the door and the brightly-lit section of chairs and was beginning to succumb to his own predictions when he realised that he had totally forgotten to check the other side of the room, a dark corner with Slytherins spiking each other's drinks and having it off behind curtains.

Come to think of it, it was the sort of place people went if they didn't want to be noticed. The sort of place where Harry could be easily overlooked, while people were engrossed in their own business. There was a sort of rule, that you could go there and be ignored by everyone else, as long as you ignored everyone else.

Ron gulped down the rest of his butterbeer and moved cautiously from the fairy-lit floor into dusk-light candle glow. He peered around, looking for a figure of Harry's height and frame. A strange sound, almost familiar even though he was sure he had not heard it before distracted him, and he turned to the direction it came from.

Ginny. His sister, Ginny, and he remembered her running around the garden, uncut red hair blowing in her face, laughing as she licked a dripping chocolate ice-cream, jumping up and down as she received her Hogwarts letter, learning how to ride a broomstick, glancing and blushing at Harry, and now ––

Black skirt bunched up round her waist, stockinged legs wrapped around a sixth year Slytherin with long messy hair, and a red thong round one ankle. The Slytherin gripped her thighs and buried himself to the hilt inside her, and she threw back her head and moaned. Her chiffon top had been dispensed with, the black corset of the dress was partially unlaced, and her white, freckled breasts heaved with every thrust. He realised suddenly, sickly, that she had impressive breasts. He hadn't wanted to know that so well.

The Slytherin slipped a hand between Ginny's legs, and did something that made her bite her lip hard and pant. He seemed to lose all restraint, pounding into her as hard and fast as he could, and moving his hand to the same rhythm. Ron had no desire to watch his little sister as she came hard, mouth closed firmly to muffle her scream. The Slytherin did the same as she finished, but his closed eyes and his shudder were the only indication. Ginny looked up suddenly in his direction and for a moment Ron thought she had seen him, but she only stared, eyes glazed with lust... no. Eyes glazed with tears. That was worse.

Ron's legs reconnected to his brain and he ran for it, brushing past Hermione who fixed him with an inquiring look, then a worried one.

"Ron...?"

He shook his head, unable to say anything, and stumbled haphazardly in the direction of the bathrooms. He looked at himself in the mirror, and suddenly realised that he had Ginny's eyes. His face in the mirror was blurred, apart from his eyes, which were empty and shining with tears, just as Ginny's had been.

He tore his gaze away, wondering if he wasn't a little drunk, and splashed his face with cold water. He thought he was going to be sick, and coughed into the little sink. Guilt unsettled his stomach, making him retch. He hadn't looked after his little sister – his beautiful little sister, and now she was broken and hurting and it was all his fault because he hadn't listened to her, had been worried but hadn't done anything.

He remembered being worried; remembered thinking out his conundrum over and over, but seeing no solution, but that, somehow, was no consolation at all. He didn't know what to do now, but he thought that all he could do was give her a hug and see if she would talk to him, or someone. If she would let him.

It was a long time before Ron left the bathroom.

Harry and Draco sat on a low couch in the dark corner of the Great Hall, completely unnoticed by everyone else. This was partly due to the Disillusionment Charms, and partly due to the fact that everyone else was... absorbed in their own business. People were dancing, talking, laughing, getting drunk and, in some cases, shagging, the latter two probably as the result of spiked punch. Harry and Draco decided to avoid the punch, but were nevertheless becoming slightly inebriated of the butterbeer. Draco sat almost in Harry's lap, and they alternately talked and kissed, revelling in the opportunity to relax and not think about whether someone might be behind the door.

More butterbeer was consumed. Harry pulled Draco firmly into his lap and had slipped the robe off his shoulders, when someone fell onto their couch .

"Ow! I swear I sat on something there," The unfamiliar voice brought them out of their pleasant, slightly drunken haze.

"We should... um, we should probably go," Draco said, pressing open-mouthed kisses along Harry's jaw.

"You're right," said Harry, shivering and continuing his attempts to disrobe Draco.

"I think we're, uh, probably a bit – a bit drunk." Draco said, and they managed to part long enough to engage in some thinking.

"My room," Harry said, instantly.

Draco's head snapped up to look directly at Harry. "What about your roommates?"

Only a moment's hesitation: "They can go to hell."

Draco stared a moment longer, before leaning further into Harry and kissing him again. They forgot themselves briefly, then Harry wrapped his arms around Draco's slim waist and hoisted them both into a roughly upright position. In their slightly tipsy and oblivious state, they were not as careful as they might have been on their way out, jostling several people who looked round confusedly to find no one there.

Someone brushed past Hermione, and she turned to see no one. She was about to dismiss it when she caught a shimmer in the air by the door. Squinting, she was sure she saw Harry and Draco leaving, and perhaps Harry was even leaning drunkenly against Draco.

Harry didn't check that his dorm was empty before tugging Draco onto his bed. He ignored a ripping sound as they sat on his drapes, and didn't hear a crash as his glass of water fell off his bedside table. His ears were filled with Draco's gasped moans as his fingers slipped under his shirt to brush over a sensitive nipple, and his vision was taken up by Draco's skin, pale and smooth and marked here and there with possessive bite marks.

A button popped off Draco's shirt as Harry tried to remove it, and he groaned in frustration.

"Rip it," said Draco from between his teeth, equally frustrated, and the tight shirt came off Draco's sweat-slicked body with a satisfying tearing sound. Harry repeated the process much more efficiently with his own shirt, and he turned them both over until Draco's weight was pinning him to the bed.

"What are ... you ... ?" Draco gasped in surprise, given that he was now on top of Harry. He wasn't exactly sure why this should surprise him, but he somehow felt unsure of himself. In answer, Harry simple pulled Draco down on top of him, white skin on pale moving in delicious and painful friction. Draco had no idea what to expect by now. Harry was constantly surprising him and doing the completely unexpected , and he suddenly knew that there was no point. He stopped trying to pull his unresponsive mind through muddy and tangled thought processes, and gave in to Harry's wet kisses down his neck, and the feeling of Harry's smooth skin under his fingertips, puckered here and there into scars that he couldn't tear his hands away from. Or perhaps it was the way

Harry's breath fluttered every time Draco ran his fingers and then his mouth over their contours that produced his fascination with them.

Draco's fingers reached Harry's belt and stopped. "I don't – I don't know what –– "

Harry placed a finger against Draco's lips, then kissed him again. "Not now," he whispered, into Draco's mouth. They lay and just kissed on Harry's bed for what seemed like forever.

Theodore Nott was worrying. It wasn't particularly unusual; he'd been on edge pretty much constantly for the past year. It didn't do to let your guard down in Slytherin in case someone accidentally-on-purpose stabbed you in the back while you weren't looking. But it was more than that. He didn't need to be worrying any more, not since Blaise had gone to so much effort to protect him and make sure that harming him was just about a hanging offence. Nobody had actually bothered to test whether or not Blaise had been serious – that was the heartwarming Slytherin sense of self-preservation at work. Still, he didn't exactly feel _safe_ – in fact, he'd been feeling distinctly off balance ever since Draco Malfoy had fallen from grace.

Nomatter what Blaise said, it had been a coup de grace to fell Draco from his throne. Everyone thought that Lucius fleeing back to Voldemort had been the nail in Draco's coffin, but it was much more complicated than that. Of course, nobody really understood, and certainly not anyone outside of Slytherin who was unaccustomed to their politics.

He suspected no one knew that Draco had seen Voldemort. Either for real, or he'd been immersed in a memory, but either way Theo shivered at the thought. In either case, it had been during the Easter Holidays in fifth year. Draco had come back terrified and insecure, and it had come out as anger and spite and arrogance.

Then, his worst nightmare had come true: his father had been sent to Azkaban. Draco could have handled that – the humiliation could have run off him and he could have come back in sixth year stronger than before. More in control. But he had seen Voldemort, and now his one insurance policy was gone. His father was making him follow Voldemort, but in the end Draco was smarter than that. He knew that while his father was important in the Death Eaters, Draco could hide behind him. With Lucius behind bars and, worse, on the run, there was no distance between himself and Voldemort. And that was what had caused Draco to let go of his throne, and fall from fame and glory into barely acknowledged solace.

Oh, Draco was clever, and well-trained by Lucius. One way or another, Theo suspected he'd had enough. If he wasn't in control of the situation, he wouldn't touch the Dark Lord with a barge pole. And then there was Potter – but that was a whole different story. For Draco's sake, he hoped they managed to keep it a secret, for that would gain the attention that both Draco and Potter wanted to avoid for their mutual safety. But Potter's gain was Slytherin's loss: Blaise had taken Draco's throne and sent Slytherin House spiralling into chaos.

Draco and Blaise: so similar on the face of it, but if you looked closer, they were entirely different. They were both clever, intense, powerful. But Draco never showed how clever he was, doubted his power behind an affected sort of arrogance, and with every emotion he burned. Blaise wasn't as clever as he thought he was, his power was unpredictable, and he wasn't as strong as Draco. Fear, probably, drove him to a malice, almost a sadism, that Draco just didn't have.

That was where Theo's problems started. He wasn't trodden on and restrained like everyone else, of course not; he was the proverbial sidekick, the best friend, the right hand man. Therein lay the problem. They had used to be a partnership that existed alongside, rather than within, Draco's circles. There had been a bit of overlap, but mostly they had engineered it so they didn't have to fight to stay where they were. They could just sit and watch everyone else play their games, only involving themselves when they chose to, or it suited them. Blaise noticed everything and Theo explained everything. Theo couldn't exist without Blaise, and he'd liked to think that Blaise couldn't exist without Theo.

For all his perceptiveness, he hadn't noticed he was the only one apart from Draco who didn't find Blaise slightly frightening. Then Blaise had changed, the same time as Draco had and probably for the same reason. Everything that Theo had known changed. For all the Slytherin politics and power games, and for all they realised they would be important contacts once they left school, they all knew deep down that it wasn't quite real. It was more a practice for the real thing, where failure really would leave you destitute or in prison or dead, rather than ostracized or humiliated or tormented. Blaise changed all that. Suddenly it was all deadly serious: Theo was only surprised no one had died yet.

He'd heard about Pansy: battered and broken in the Hospital Wing, but of course Dumbledore was busy with the War and Voldemort, never mind the minor Dark Lord in the snake pit that Dumbledore didn't care for anyway. She was confined to her room except for meals and classes now. He had gone to visit her, and found her half-mad and delirious, but vicious in her hatred of Blaise. It stung painfully, but then he had had to acknowledge himself that it was real, that the person he had admired most in the world had become something like a dictator, and he had done nothing to stop him.

There were only two options: sit tight and try to minimise the damage Blaise caused, or engineer a coup d'etat. The first option was making him sick to his stomach, and as for the second – well. He didn't know if he had it in him to betray his best friend.


	13. My Only Weakness

"Theo!" Blaise shouted. He did this all the time, and it tugged at somewhere painful inside Theo every time Blaise shouted his name as he always had. He wandered into Blaise's room and sat down beside him, praying that the boy who noticed everything couldn't see how torn he felt.

Blaise was spread decadently on a low sofa, a posture he usually adopted when he was planning something. The more relaxed he looked, the cleverer and more diabolical he thought the plan was. When Theo sat down, he purred like a cat. Theo pursed his lips and tried not to shiver.

"I've been thinking, Theo. I need to get rid of Potter." He mused carelessly.

"Why? He's not a Slytherin." Theo's breath caught. He realised he didn't know whether Blaise seriously meant what he had said, and that scared him, that he couldn't read his best friend properly any more. Or perhaps he just didn't want to.

"No." He paused for a moment, then appeared to lose himself in his thoughts. At length he spoke again. "Have you heard anything, my perceptive Thee? People talking? It's all Pansy's fault of course, spreading her delusions – perhaps I should be rid of her as well. Any thoughts?"

You'll have to do much better than that, old friend, Theo thought. Blaise was clever, no denying that – but, sadly, not quite as clever as he thought he was. "People talk all the time, Blaise. And Pansy is harmless; everyone can see she has turned mad." He swallowed the sick feeling in his stomach that came when Blaise talked like this. "It would be better to keep her, as an example. That way you won't have to waste too much effort carrying out your threats."

Blaise smiled at him, the same, sharp smile he had had for years. Theo had used to think it was clever and sparkling. Now he saw it the way everyone else did: frightening. Nevertheless he was sure there was a hint of madness that had crept in after Easter in fifth year, and he could cling onto the delusion that something had happened to make his closest friend like this.

"Still," Blaise said, "it would be an accomplishment to finish Potter. Something Draco never managed, if you remember." Which was, of course, what made Draco so much cleverer than Blaise. He never had to make an example of anyone, nor did he ever make any threats. People just fell into line – if a sharp glare didn't do it then a dazzling Malfoy smile would. He suspected that Draco's fascination with the Boy Who Lived was his sole weakness, but of course he had turned it into an advantage by being the only person who could truly get to Potter, which in turn gained Draco admiration from the rest of his House. But Theo was not going to mention Draco and Potter.

"True." He hardly dared ask, but some sick sort of curiosity forced him to find out how far Blaise's madness had spread. "How are you going to go about it?"

"I was thinking a broom jinx. It would even look like an accident. And of course we'd have the treat of seeing Potter's body all mashed into the grass of the Quidditch pitch." Blaise laughed, and Theo suppressed the urge to run.

The door opened, and a redheaded figure slipped in and sat on the arms of Blaise's sofa, crossing her legs. "What's this about Harry's body on the Quidditch pitch?" Ginny Weasley said and giggled. Blaise slapped her thigh.

"What did I say about listening in on my conversations with Theo, Gin?"

She pouted, and pulled the hand on her thigh up inside her black skirt. "But you're always talking to Nott. He takes up all of your time. Can't you just tell him to go away?" The pout changed to a moan when Blaise moved his hand inside her skirt.

He turned. "Read a book or something, Thee, would you?" He divested Ginny of her knickers then pulled her down on top of him. Theo looked away and picked up the nearest book, staring at its pages but not taking in a word of what it said. The words that could not possibly be English spun in dizzying circles in front of his eyes, but he could not block Blaise's heavy breathing and Ginny's moans and high-pitched squeals. The noise subsided, and Theo looked up to see Ginny dressed in nothing but her tiny black skirt.

"What're you looking at? Never seen a naked girl before?" She said. Blaise mumbled something, and reached up to cover her breasts with his hands. Theo stared in paralysis for half a second, then turned and fled. He could hear Ginny's giggle mixed with Blaise's low laugh echoing down the corridor after him.

Draco woke up next to Harry, sure he'd gone mad. Had Harry looked so gaunt last night, or had the mysterious punch blurred his vision? Had Harry always been this thin, and he'd never noticed? He pulled the covers down, feeling for the first time the sharp bones that jutted from Harry's hips, and the way his own slender fingers wrapped easily around Harry's bony wrist.

Harry stirred, then sat up. "Wha…?"

He was the same all over. Skin stretched tight and gaunt over the bones in his face, and his ribs and spine were easily felt through loose clothing.

Draco tugged Harry's wrist. "Come on. We're going to the Hospital Wing."

"I'm not ill, Draco," Harry said, sounding sleepy and confused.

"Of course you're not ill!" Draco said, his words increasing in speed and pitch. "You're just about to pass out and you're so thin I could snap you like a twig – how could there _possibly_ be anything wrong with you?!" Draco pulled Harry close and ran his fingers over Harry's hipbones.

"Draco, stop it!" Harry said, shrugging him off.

There was a tight silence. Draco held onto Harry's wrist like a lifeline.

"I'll––" Harry began.

"No, I will." Draco said, taking his wand and working the Disillusionment charm. He didn't know what the other one Harry normally cast was, so this would have to do. "Idiot," he said, to both himself and Harry. "Where's your wand?"

"Safe."

Draco drew a relieved breath. "Let's get you to Madame Pomfrey."

They made it out of the Gryffindor common room and to the Hospital Wing, despite Harry's protests that he was fine.

"Madame Pomfrey?"

She came in, looking harassed,

"What is it, Harry?"

"No," Said Draco. "It's Harry that's ill."

She raked her well-trained eyes over Harry. "Take your shirt off,"

Harry folded stick-like arms across his chest and looked down.

"For goodness' sake, Harry. You're good as a healer, but blooming useless as a patient."

The corner of his mouth twitched briefly into something resembling a smirk at their running joke. He took off his shirt, and placed defiant hands over his hipbones. Madame Pomfrey nodded and bustled off. Draco stifled an intake of breath.

Harry looked up immediately. "What?"

Draco shook his head, and wrapped his arms protectively around Harry's shoulders, but Harry shook him off.

"There's nothing wrong with me." He insisted. Draco took Harry's wrist between his hands,

and this time he did not protest.

At length, Madame Pomfrey came back with a grim set to her mouth. "Mr Malfoy, I'll have to ask you to leave." Harry pulled his hand out of Draco's grasp, and stood up to face her.

Draco crept back that night, feeling guilty for leaving Harry to the strict mediwitch. Harry was sleeping curled in a ball with his arms crossed over his face, in a foetal position which made him look small and vulnerable. Lifting the covers hesitantly, Draco climbed in beside him and wrapped his body around Harry's. He lay for perhaps hours, falling asleep occasionally, and stroking Harry's hair when troubling dreams brought him to wakefulness.

Hearing footsteps outside the door, he disentangled himself from Harry, eliciting a small mewl of sleeping protest, and sat in the chair lazily as if he'd been there all night.

"Mr Malfoy," Madame Pomfrey's voice was gentler than he had expected. "Go and get some rest. You won't do him any good until you've both had some sleep."

Draco left reluctantly, stealing a last backward glance at Harry's skinny form, and knew immediately what he had to do.

He had worked up quite a rage by the time he arrived at the Gryffindor common room, and began pounding on the Fat Lady's frame. She glared at him.

"Careful! I'm not made of stone, you know," she said reproachfully, rearranging her skirts.

He offered a noncommittal reply. The portrait hole opened, and the cautiously curious face of Neville Longbottom appeared inside it. When he saw Draco, he stood up and stepped back from the entrance, frowning.

"What do you want, Malfoy?"

"I want to talk to Granger." He said. Neville inched forward.

"Why?" There was suspicion, but he looked genuinely confused.

Draco sighed. The one time you need him to be the same old pushover...

"Tell her – tell her it's about Harry."Draco felt a questioning gaze wash over him as Neville assessed his reply. Then he nodded slightly, and disappeared.

A few minutes later, Granger appeared. "What is it, Malfoy?" she questioned sharply, looking far more suspicious than Neville had.

"Come out, Granger. I need to talk to you." She threw him another mistrustful glance, but stepped out of the portrait hole, which swung closed behind her.

"Well?" She said, impatiently. Her could practically see her assessing all the essays and reading she had to do, trying to decide how annoyed she should be at the interruption.

"It's about Harry," He began. Now that he saw her, getting irritated over interrupted homework, he was angrier than ever, and he couldn't remember most of what he had planned to say.

"I _know_. Neville told me."

"Then do you know _why_ Harry's in the Hospital Wing?"

"What?" Draco gave her a few seconds to work it out an formulate a theory, ignorant self-absorbed Gryffindor. An expression of horror crossed her face.

"Harry's in the Hospital Wing? What's he done this time, whacked his head off a bludger?" She sounded exasperated. Draco thought, that's what she would have said last year.

"Yes." He hesitated for a moment and took a breath, trying to reign in his feelings. "Are you Harry's friend?"

"What?"

"Granger, this is becoming tedious," he said through gritted teeth. "Just answer the damn question."

"Of course! Surely even you can't have missed that," She said, defensively, but then bit her lip and looked at the floor. "I used to think I was," she said quietly.

"You should know him better than I do," Draco said. "You should pay enough attention to him to at least know when he's been hurt!"

"But I don't. He won't talk to me," she said helplessly. Draco shook his head in disgust.

"What, you were waiting for him to come and _tell _ you that he practically fucking collapsed on the floor?" Draco shouted. "You should have seen him, Granger. He's like a fucking bag of bones." His voice began to crack, and he cleared his throat, breathing heavily.

"He's too thin? Why, is he – sick?"

"No. He's beyond too thin. He's scaring me, and Pomfrey." Draco swallowed and curled his hands tightly into fists.

She placed her hand over her mouth, but a keening cry escaped from behind shaking fingers.

"I – I didn't know," she stammered. "I didn't know! How could I know?"

"Because he was yours, damn you!" He said, not even realising he'd spoken in the past tense. "He's Gryffindor, he's your friend, he sits beside you at the table, he's in practically every one of your damn classes and you still didn't know! You've known him for years – you're supposed to know him better than I do." He took a shaky breath. So much for keeping his anger in check, but she deserved it.

"No, I – I couldn't do anything; I couldn't help him at all, he wouldn't let me!"

"Don't you _dare_ insinuate that he's a lost cause." Draco snapped, his temper completely in shards. Hermione's mouth closed.

"I wasn't." Her chin raised. "but you're no good for him either, teaching him how to cast Dark spells and act like a Slytherin, and it isn't Harry! I knew him, I...I know he isn't like that."

"The person you think you know ... doesn't exist." Draco said quietly. "Harry, even as he used to be, was at least half a Slytherin at heart. But he's changed, and you have to stop treating him as if he's the same old Harry he always was." He said. "But it doesn't matter – I see now."

"See what?"

_How you drove him away._ "That I have to do this on my own. You don't know how to make your Harry come back, but maybe I can fix mine. Thank you for your time." he said coldly, and walked off. His head was held high and proud, but his shoulders were weighted down by things Hermione didn't want to know.

She walked back into the common room, and tried her hardest to forget every word he'd said.

A few hours later, Hermione went to the Hospital Wing to see Harry. Malfoy was sitting in the chair beside his bed with dark rings underneath his eyes, but he stood up when he saw her.

"Don't wake him," he said tiredly, and left her alone with Harry.

She waited till the door had closed behind him, before sitting down on the uncomfortable armchair. From this angle he looked mostly all right; only his head was visible from underneath the covers, but when she looked closed she noticed deep shadows playing in the hollows of his face, much darker than they should have been. She pulled back the covers just a little way and gasped.

"Oh, Harry..." she placed the covers back down over him.

There was a noise behind her, and drawn suddenly out of her melancholy reverie, she felt water leak down her face without her permission.

"Crying won't help, Granger," Malfoy said, surprisingly gently. His hand trailed over Harry's jaw, and Malfoy brushed back his hair with to fingers. Hermione was startled. She hadn't thought of it being like that, and the thought somehow made her uncomfortable. She shifted in her chair, and he drew back.

Draco was too tired to give her a look of contempt, but he hated the way she was probably unconsciously recoiling from Harry. He told her to go, and she nodded; beneath everything, he could see a hint of relief that he knew she would die before admitting. He found her remarkably easy to read, after months of trying to solve the puzzle that was Harry – her face was an open book, and if that didn't work, her body language and manner were easy enough to read. With Harry, it was much more difficult; sometimes he had no idea how he knew something – he just did. Most of all, though, Harry's eyes were telling of his mood, especially when he was angry.

Most of the time, Harry's eyes were the colour of the killing curse.

When Hermione had gone, Madame Pomfrey came out of her office. Draco took one look at her face, and braced himself for Merlin knew what.

"Mr Malfoy..." she began, hesitantly. "I don't really know to whom I should tell this – but, well, you're the one who's visited the most, and Harry himself is aware of the...circumstances. I remember it used to be the Weasley boy and that Hermione girl – but things change, I suppose, Mr Malfoy – and not always for the better. Still."

"Madame Pomfrey, would you mind cutting to the chase and telling me what the hell's wrong with Harry?" He said. The quicker the axe fell...he didn't know. But hideous anticipation was eating at his insides.

"Harry has been poisoned." She said.

"Is it – do you know what it is? Is there an antidote?" He paused, and asked the question he hated to ask, but had to for his own sanity. "Is Harry going to be all right?"

Madame Pomfrey sighed, and Draco looked at the floor. "I ought to tell you something about this poison – and I also have a few questions.

"I must tell you that it takes a very long time to reach the state of emaciation that Harry is in – if it is reached naturally. If this was so, There would have been signs for weeks – he would have been tired, faint – he would be unable to walk far, complete simple tasks easily, and would have shown a lack of enthusiasm for getting out of bed, much less doing anything remotely strenuous. Is that – does that fit Harry's symptoms?"

Draco's guilt told him that it must have been there all along, and like the blind idiot he was, he must have missed it. But his common sense told him that last week, Harry had been making plans to bring down a junior Dark Lord and casting complex wandless magic, which he couldn't have done if he's been tired and weak all the time. "No."

Madame Pomfrey nodded. "What he has taken is called a wasting draught. It uses up all the victim's energy stored in their body, until they starve to death at a very accelerated rate. Knowing Harry's magical strength a little...I'd say he was poisoned perhaps a few days ago. It's only because of his remarkable magic that he's lasted this long."

Draco swallowed and nodded, feeling sick. "So – but you can give him the antidote, and he'll get better, right?"

"Now I know what is wrong, I can dose him with Nourishment Draughts. But Harry must fight the potion off himself – it remains to be seen whether he is magically strong enough to do so."

Draco's legs gave out from beneath him, and he ended up cross legged on the floor. "So if he's not strong enough...he'll die."

Madame Pomfrey, normally so collected and calm, avoided Draco's gaze and bit her lip. "It won't come to that," she said. But with her expression, he didn't believe her.


	14. Suspicion

It was wearing. Not because he was tired of sitting by Harry's bed – no, he could have sat there all day and all night, leaning on Harry's chest and filling his lungs with the smell of him. It was seeing the proud, strong Harry he knew sedated and helpless on a hospital bed which wore down his soul. There was nothing he could do – and it was probably the worst feeling in the world.

No. No. There was something – there was something Harry had told him. Something he should do _In case something bad happens_, Harry had said. A book, something that should be in the restricted section, but wasn't. He remembered.Suddenly feeling less hopeless than he had for the past twenty-nine hours, he made for the library as fast as he could manage without breaking into a run.

Just outside the locked rail that separated The Restricted Section from the rest of the library, there was a small, dusty book stand tucked into a corner. _Historie of Magicks Discoverede in Thysse, The Sixteenthe Centurie _was sitting on the second shelf, and if anyone bothered to look, they'd notice that it wasn't so dusty as the others. Draco looked around in a casual fashion, took the book and sat down.

Flipping through its yellowed pages, he remembered stories told while he sat on Lucius' knee as a child and had evil things whispered into his ear. Stories of Dark spells cast on innocent people for amusement, of mind control, humiliation, torture, rape. His father lit up, as much as he ever did, when he talked like this. The Death Eater glory days. Remembering made Draco feel sick to his stomach, as he read about spells his father had sometime cast and potions he had made and forced dozen victims' throats.

None of that, unfortunately, helped Harry. Or – but maybe there was a way. He closed the book.

He needed to find a way to share his magic with Harry, because Harry's strength was spent, on difficult spells and wandless magic. Not all the spells were reminiscent of the Death Eaters. There were many, many spells of bonding, spells of enslavement, binding spells. Fidelity spells. Oaths. Spells more terrible than chains, spells to suck you dry of magic. At the end of the section there were bonding, joining spells. Blood siblings, spells for sharing power, thoughts, or feelings, of many strengths and forms.

He turned the page, and found a piece of parchment covered in black ink.

_Draco,_

_If you're reading this book, and this note, then somethings gone wrong. I've probably done _

_something stupid. I wanted to tell you not to be more stupid. If someone else did this, don't make a list of 100 ways to kill them yet – unless I'm dead, in which case make sure it's spectacular, and for Merlin's sake don't get yourself caught. _

_If I'm dying, don't kill yourself trying to save me. There's some weird spells is this thing. Be careful; saving me isn't worth you getting hurt. _

_I'd tell you to leave me in the capable hands of Madame Pomfrey, but I expect you wouldn't listen to me. _

_Whatever happens, I'll see you again. I'll see you again sometime. _

_Harry_

Draco stared at the letter for awhile, before carefully folding the parchment and slipping it into his pocket. He opened the book again and began to read again.

The difficult part, now, was getting Madame Pomfrey out of the way. He didn't really want to cast a spell, as Harry would have done; even if he'd had Harry's raw power he didn't have anything like Harry's skill. No, he would have to be a bit more crafty about it. Everybody had to sleep sometime.

He gathered his equipment and cast a neat little chameleon spell, then cursed when his shrinking spell fell flat. He tried again, then fitted the shrunk items into his pocket, hoping he hadn't caused any permanent damage.

At eleven or so he wandered into the hospital wing and sat in the familiar uncomfortable plastic chair beside Harry's bed. He thought about conjuring a cushion, then thought he'd be better off not to if he wanted to stay awake until Pomfrey went to bed. Perhaps it was imagination, but he thought Harry looked different. The creases on his forehead had smoothed out, and his breathing was quiet and shallow. He looked like he was sleeping peacefully, not dying. He looked like he had stopped fighting.

Draco would just have to fight for him then. He looked at him and yawned, reflecting that Harry probably knew a fair few spells to keep you awake, but that wasn't any use with Harry himself magically sedated. He'd just have to do this the old-fashioned way, with will-power and luck and horrible pounding fear. Draco knew that way worked – worked so well, and kept you awake even when you longed for sleep without a potion.

Madame Pomfrey came through. "You should be in bed," she said when she saw Draco. He started, and pulled his hand off th bed where it had been creeping towards Harry's

"I couldn't sleep." He said. She nodded slightly and sighed. He'd spent most of his spare time in here lately. "How's Harry been?" As if he didn't know the answer.

"He's...stable. Which is something." She said. There was none of the brisk sort of hope in her voice anymore; she knew well enough by now that Draco would be told the truth. Draco nodded, lips pursed, and she sighed. She'd become almost fond of him. "I'll give him his potion – but," she hesitated, looking carefully at his cold face, "you have to realise that he might just stay like this. Forever."

He looked up, and though she could never see anything in his icy features, she fancied that

there was despair in his eyes. "How?"

She hesitated again. That was it. She couldn't _see _anything: the boy was a perfect actor, but with a mediwitch's instincts, she could feel the tight knot of fear in his magic. But he just stared at her, silently demanding she continue. "I can stop the potion from killing him, but if Harry can't purge the dark magic from his body, he won't get better. He'll just stay, slipping in and out of consciousness."

Nothing. Not even a twitch, a shudder – she was impressed, in a chilly sort of way. She almost thought he didn't understand her, but he was sharp as a knife, so she doubted it. He shook his head definitely. "I won't let you." He said. He knew exactly what she meant, then.

"I wouldn't do it without your consent. It's not my place to make that decision."

"My consent? It's not my damn decision either." Draco said. Just...said. She felt his magic, which was about ready to start breaking the windows. It would have fitted better if he'd screamed at her and thrown things, but he just stood there, and spoke calmly.

"I know. It's not supposed to be anyone's decision. But I think you're the only one in this school who has the right to make it."

Draco said nothing. She could feel his volatile magic retreating back into him, like a cobra after a strike. "It won't come to that." he said.

She nodded grimly, and went to bed.

Draco heard Madame Pomfrey clearing up in her back room. She'd probably be going to bed soon. He looked at Harry again, suddenly terrified. What if it didn't work and he had to – he didn't think he could do it. He knew he couldn't do it, and no matter what Harry had said in his letter, he'd give every last drop of strength in his body to him to make him better. There was one other possibility – and it was almost too terrible to think about – what if he killed Harry? He'd go to Azkaban for sure, and he'd spend the rest of his life reliving the moment where he destroyed everything he'd ever wanted.

But – of course, this wasn't helping. There was nothing for it. He picked up his wand and began his enchantments in a whisper.

He was awoken the next morning by a light tap on his shoulder.

"My goodness, you're a light sleeper, Mr Malfoy," Madame Pomfrey said. He nodded. In the Malfoy household, and in Slytherin, it was a survival trait. And he didn't like to be touched.

"You should start sleeping in bed. Mr Potter will manage without a visitor for a while." He nodded, realised he was almost late for Transfiguration, picked up his bag, and left.

Later, sitting in Transfiguration, he couldn't pay attention. Normally he was quite good at it, but it wasn't any fun without Harry sitting, carefully constructing half-transfigured messed at the beginning. He said it took more concentration than doing the thing properly. Draco stared at the watch he was supposed to be transfiguring into a belt, and realised he couldn't remember the incantation. He didn't really care anyway. He could feel is insides churning from worry and lack of food; he hadn't eaten since...lunch yesterday? Breakfast? He couldn't recall.

It was too soon to tell if the spell had worked. He didn't know if Harry could draw on his strength while he was sedated. He didn't know if it was possible to wake Harry up – he wasn't the one who was doing Medical Magic, he didn't really know anything beyond what they'd done in Potions. The implications of what he'd done hadn't really hit him until now; he was bonded to Harry. For _life_. It hadn't even occurred to him while he was focused on saving Harry – what if he should die? Harry would be left, one half of a power-bond, or even dead.

It was a terrible fate to damn anyone to. But what else could he have done? It might have taken months to find something else, and he didn't know if Harry had had months. And if Harry didn't...want him, he supposed they could break it, though it would break Draco.

He picked up his wand, seeing McGonagall's frown, and aimed it at the watch. He frowned as it swam in front of his eyes, and attempted the vision went fuzzy, then grey, and he heard a thump; the last thing he heard was McGonagall telling him to get up.

He woke up to Madame Pomfrey peering over him. When she saw he was awake, she sighed.

"Almost as bad as Harry, you are. Working too hard, not getting enough sleep – you ought to take care of yourself better." She said.

He nodded, and sat up. "What happened?"

"You collapsed. Dead faint, poor dear."

He scowled. Malfoy's didn't faint, he though, then noticed that the grim look had left her face.

"How is––"

"Harry?" She asked, smiling. "He's doing well, He's sleeping right now."

Draco flopped back onto the bed and breathed, wrapping his arms across his chest. "Thank

Merlin," he said, to no one in particular. Madame Pomfrey smiled, seeing the first truly natural gesture from Draco. After a moment, he made to stand up.

"Mr Malfoy! I will no have you getting up just yet. I'm making sure you get some proper rest tonight; you can go in the morning."

Draco sighed. Then again, he didn't hate the Hospital Wing any more.

The moment Draco woke up, he knew something was different. He could feel something at the edge of his consciousness – a sort of gentle pull that was almost reassuring. It seemed to become stronger, so he got up and automatically went to see Harry. When he pulled back the curtain, he could see Harry's eyelids fluttering. A moment later, Harry was awake and staring at him with those huge green eyes of his. "You did it," he said quietly.

Draco nodded noncommittally, hovering at the edge of Harry's bed.

"Tell me later." Harry hesitated. "C'mere."

Draco smiled in relief. He fell upon Harry and hugged him tightly.

Madame Pomfrey peeked through the door at the two boys, and smiled. Some people

wouldn't approve, of course, but that was beside the point. It was...fitting. Dangerous for both of them, but they were strong enough. Besides, it was plain to see they needed each other.

She turned and left, relieved things had turned out for the best.

"Something feels different," Harry said, after a few moments. He seemed to search inside his head for a moment, then pressed a kiss against Draco's mouth. Lights flickered and Draco felt dizzy inside his own head.

"What happened?" He realised that he didn't have much idea how the spell worked, other than what every wizard born into a family of wizards knew.

"I supposed it's a side-effect of that spell you cast," Harry said. That meant he was curious. Draco froze. This was where everything could go wrong.

"I...I cast a power-bond spell on y––on us." He said.

"I figured."

There was a silence, and for the life of him Draco couldn't think of anything to say to fill it. Did Harry know already what kind of spell it was? Did he approve? Was he angry? He didn't have any idea how to say what Harry needed to know.

"It was in the book you told me to look at. It wasn't as complicated as the others; I didn't want to mess it up. But now we're...bonded. Forever. Do you know what that means?"

Harry stared at him for a long while. "That spell only works if...if the person who casts it would die for his bonded."

Draco nodded. He hadn't really thought about it much at the time but he supposed that was important, now. Harry's silence was beginning to scare him. His whole predicament was scaring him, and the only thing that was all right about it was that he would spend the next

while bonded to Harry. After that – well. He would survive. He always had.

Harry pulled him close so inches separated his face from Harry's. He would hear his fate now, Draco knew as Harry's eyes burned into his. "There is no one else in the world I would rather be bonded to." Harry said.

Draco's breath caught. There was no way Harry had just said... He realised he was shaking, and tried to put a stop to it without success. Then Harry buried his face in Draco's shoulder and he was completely lost.

Hermione was in a familiar place – worrying about Harry. She hadn't had the courage to go and see Harry since Malfoy had taken her – and he had all but taken her. She'd found it a horrible experience, then had spent days hating herself for feeling as though she didn't want it to know. She hated Malfoy, too, for making her feel ashamed of herself. But then, he'd been doing that for years, over something she couldn't – and if she was honest with herself, didn't want to – help. Now, it was worse, because it was something she could have done, but didn't.

She went to the Hospital Wing, hoping that Harry would look better. She couldn't face him looking so ill again. Madame Pomfrey came through, carrying some empty potion bottles, and stopped suddenly when she saw Hermione. "Well. I haven't seen you around for a while," she said, putting the bottles on a shelf.

"No..." she hesitated. "I came to ask about Harry."

Madame Pomfrey didn't bother to turn round to talk to her. "Harry left yesterday."

"Oh. Is he better?" Madame Pomfrey made an affirmative noise, and began to wash some more bottles. "What was wrong with him?" She asked.

Madame Pomfrey turned round and faced her properly for the first time. "I couldn't possibly say, Miss Granger. Now, if you've no further business."

"Well – where is he now? I can't find him!" Hermione took a calming breath.

Madame Pomfrey's frosty expression softened. "Miss Granger, I can't help it if Harry doesn't want to be found." Hermione looked at the ground, and nodded.

She left the Hospital Wing, trying to banish a queasy sensation in her stomach. She needed to find Harry, see what was happening, see if her fears were justified. But how on earth was she supposed to find Harry? Madame Pomfrey was right; he didn't want to be found, for very good reasons. It was understandable that he didn't want anyone else knowing about Malfoy, she supposed. So where did they meet? It would be stealthy, certainly. At odd times, when no one was around, I places no one could reach -

The Room of Requirement. But she had no way of knowing when they would be there, and no way of getting in, as the Room would not appear when someone else occupied it. Unless...unless. When was the last time she had seen Harry at a meal? Or Malfoy? No, she was asking the wrong questions – when was the last time she had seen them _both_ at a meal _at the same time_? It was hard to be sure; she hadn't thought of it before, but when they did turn up to meals, it was either together, or neither of them came. That was something. It, or some of it, must centre around...dinner, probably. Well. She would

watch, and wait, and see.

Dinner. Steak and Kidney pudding, roast potatoes, vegetables, gravy, raspberry cheesecake and vanilla ice-cream. Malfoy arrived, served himself some vegetables and a potato, and slowly ate around half of them. He pushed them aside and took a little cheesecake, which he ate languidly and with every appearance of enjoyment. Hermione was beginning to wonder what was going on when Harry walked in. He looked...like Harry: detached, purposeful and with a determined gait all his own. But what was there to go on, other than a slightly faster stride – and could one read people in the same fashion as potions instructions? Ah. He was late, and possibly irritated. Draco looked up, and they shared a millisecond glance. Last week it would have had little significance; this week, she understood it was everything.

Malfoy had finished his cheesecake, and poured himself a coffee, tapping on the table. Harry took a potato, then hesitated and took another. He pushed it around on his plate in time to the tapping, though he couldn't possibly hear it ad he was staring in his plate, deep in concentration. At length Harry stopped toying with his food and actually put some of it with his mouth, and Malfoy stopped tapping.. Harry finished one and a half potatoes, then pushed his plate away. Hermione thought, _This can't be a coincidence. What's happening?_ Harry stood up, and she almost expected Malfoy to stand up in sync.

But he didn't. He waited, drinking his coffee. A few minutes later he stood up and left, and Hermione followed him into the Entrance Hall. He turned a corner and ducked into a shadowy dip in the wall. Hermione leaned around the corner, realising Harry was there. Malfoy looked around briefly then leaned against the wall, looking directly at Harry. They didn't say anything, just looked at each other, but nevertheless Hermione felt horribly like a voyeur for no reason she could logically identify.

Malfoy stood up, and Hermione left as fast as she could. When she turned back round, they were nowhere to be seen.

Well. She supposed that now she knew. And it made her more uneasy than ever.

Normally, Hermione found nothing more satisfying than knowing she was, or had been, right.

When she'd first seen Harry lying emaciated in the Hospital Wing, her muggle upbringing had made her think 'anorexia'. A horrible disease, and one that fitted well with Harry's current mental state – depressed, angry, withdrawn. But after thinking about it, she had dismissed it. For one thing, it took months to reach that sort of state naturally, or at least without magic, and she would have noticed if Harry had been anorexic. Or Bulimic – but that really didn't fit properly. For another, she would have seen some weakness; your magical strength would deteriorate before your body in a kind of sacrificial protection, which of course meant that wizards were more physically resilient than muggles. Harry's magic had started to scare her, even though he still made lots of mistakes, and it was evident that he was going to become scarily powerful one day.

So she moved on to magical means. Harry obviously wouldn't have done something so stupid to himself then not bothered to tell anyone, which meant that someone had tried to kill him. The length of time it had taken to work and Pomfrey's worry indicated a potion; all but the most powerful spells ad counterspells, but many poisons didn't have antidotes.

So. A poison. A few visits to the library later, she found something that fit the bill: a Wasting Draught. Not particularly difficult to make, only, like most Dark Potions, it required the maker to desire strongly that it should hurt someone. She sprinted, leaped and dived to conclusions: Draco Malfoy. Oh, she'd been suspicious of him for a long time. He probably knew countless Dark spells, probably was taught them along with how to treat Mudbloods on Daddy's knee, and he most definitely wanted to hurt Harry. Why would he want to be friends with the boy who was against everything he'd been taught? She remembered how upset Harry had been. The little snake probably had Harry wrapped around his little finger; Harry always had been far too trusting. As much as she hated to see him hurt, in the long run it was probably good for him to realise that not everyone was redeemable.

Of course, she couldn't just assume without any evidence. If Malfoy had handled the book where the recipe was kept...oh, she was sure there was a spell for that! She found it, and cast it. The list of people who had handled the book was short:

_Hermione Granger_

_Harry Potter _

_Theodore Nott_

_Draco Malfoy_

In order of who had read it most recently. Well. That just about decided it, then, didn't it? Draco Malfoy had tried to kill Harry. She swallowed her fear, and reminded herself, as she always had when he teased her, that he was just a pathetic little ferret, and she was much better than him. After months of feeling helpless in the face of Voldemort's attacks, and then Harry's withdrawal, now, finally, there was something she could do.


	15. For a Given Value of Truth

Well. If there was one thing that comforted Theo, it was the knowledge that he'd been right. Draco had saved Potter with a bond spell (He knew he was in luck – really, it had to be fate's apology for the way she'd treated him this past year) and now together, they were a formidable force. It was a simple case of mathematics – he had more chance of survival with Draco and Potter than with Blaise. He was jumping ship to save his own hide, the way any Slytherin would, and never mind that some part of him wanted Ginny dead and Draco back on top and him and Blaise best friends again – that was important. What was important was Slytherin House, and himself.

He didn't know why condemning Blaise felt like he was killing himself. Was this whole scheme not designed so that he would be in favour when Draco came back? Because everyone knew Draco was going to come back eventually, so it was as well to help him and get in his good graces. His mind was made up, the plan was in action, and there was no turning back, and no time for regrets.

This didn't mean to say that he didn't find Potter frightening too. Still. He opened the door, and was quite relieved when only Draco was standing there, looking as chilly and controlled as ever. He relaxed fractionally. "You came," he said.

"Of course," said Draco. "I want you to tell me exactly what's going on. Then I will decide what to do."

"What about Potter?" Theo blurted, then tried to regain some calm. He saw Draco's expression flicker. "I know, remember? I didn't say anything. Nobody knows; you're safe."

"Good." Draco said. "Harry is involved in this anyway. I assume it was Blaise who poisoned him?"

Theo took a breath, and remembered that Draco always knew when you were lying. "Actually, I did it." For a moment, Draco looked murderous, then his expression became calm again. "Blaise wanted to jinx his broom, or push him off the astronomy tower. I thought, at least if I poisoned him, then he could get better. I mean, it's all for the good, isn't it? You share your power, and now you're stronger."

"Yes. It is better this way." Draco said, and Theo got the impression that, despite the casual acceptance, Draco was furious with him for almost killing Potter.

"Yes. It is better this way." Hermione paused, and tried not to breathe too loudly. What was Malfoy talking about?

"It wouldn't have worked unless Potter became really ill, you see..." She didn't recognise the other voice, but now her suspicions were confirmed. She assumed that Malfoy nodded.

"I've been waiting for the right time to take Blaise down. This is the right time; with Harry's help, I will get Slytherin back. That bastard can't have them." Hermione shivered. Malfoy's voice was cold and heartless, the way she'd always known he was.

"How is Pansy?"

A pause. The other spoke carefully. "She's...all right. Confined to her rooms. You remember."

"Just as I saw her last?"

"Yes."

If possible, Malfoy's voice became harder. "Blaise can't have her. Can't have any of them, the way he treats them."

"What will you do?" The voice was hopeful but scared. She could sympathise.

"Sit tight. We have to be careful. I need to talk to Harry." It was the last nail in the coffin. Hermione crept away as fast as she could and made for the Room of Requirement. Somehow – somehow she'd show Harry what a treacherous bastard Malfoy was. Then everything would be all right again.

SSSSSSSS

Harry took off his cloak. "We're going to have to be careful." He said.

"Yes – I can't believe that bastard poisoned you!" Draco fumed, gripping Harry's wrists tightly.

"Blaise? You don't think he really has any scruples,"

Draco sighed in frustration. "I meant Theo! Who is he more loyal to, Blaise or me?"

Harry tilted his head and thought for a moment. "It's difficult to say. He knows you are the wiser choice, or he wouldn't have come – but his affection for Blaise is too tied up with his logic."

"Of course. They were best friends. Probably still are, of a sort. So if Theo has a vendetta, he's even more dangerous."

"Exactly." Harry said. "We'll have to be careful." He put his cloak back on, and followed Draco to their working room.

Draco walked along the corridor with the room of requirement, comforted by the knowledge that Harry was close by. The bond was scaring him more every day: he could _feel_ Harry's presence. It was like a vibration, a noise in the air just too soft to be definitively heard, or a soft hum in the back of his mind that reminded him Harry was close by. He suspected it was more complex and powerful than a handy locater system and the sparks that went through their bodies every time they touched.

"Malfoy." Sans peur, sans surprise, sans doute. A motto of sorts for the family _Malfoi_ in the twelfth century. It kept them alive, eight hundred years onward, and Draco did not startle at all when confronted with Hermione.

"What? Have you finally realised that Harry's out of the Hospital Wing?"

He didn't expect her to glare at him. "No thanks to you, you – _traitor_!" He felt a slight shock run through Harry, and started to panic.

"Look, Granger, I have no idea what you're talking about, so I'll be on my way and you can take it up with someone else, okay?"

Hermione took out her wand and aimed it at him. "Don't think I'm that easily fooled! Harry needs to know what he should have known all along; that no Malfoy can be trusted."

"Relax, Granger. Seems like you want to talk to Harry' not me." He stared directly at he as her wand lowered and her sudden anger appeared to dissipate. As she left, she turned round and gave him a dark look.

"Harry's a Gryffindor, Malfoy, and you're not going to take him away from us."

"Granger, I already told you what I thought in our last little conversation. I have no desire to repeat myself – but Harry does not belong to you!" Completely forgetting that Harry was there, he shouted with emotions that seemed to burn his throat as he spoke them. Granger opened her mouth, but before she could say anything the very air seemed to melt away to reveal Harry standing right in front of her. She screamed, then covered her mouth.

"Harry! I – didn't expect...I'm sorry," she trailed off, staring. "But how?"

"No business of yours. Besides which, it's a simple spell." He stood closer to Draco. "It seems we've both been having conversations – and it seems you haven't listened to a word either of us have said." He took a calming breath. "Draco is _not_ a traitor – and I told you before not to interfere. You said you wanted to see. I suppose your curiosity overrides whatever my friendship was worth to you.

"Well. You'll see. Goodbye, Hermione." He turned round, and in a swish of his cloak, both Harry and Draco melted into the air.

Draco knew that when she saw them as they really were, she wouldn't be so eager to follow them.

Later that night, the Gryffindor Common Room was empty apart from Hermione, who was presumably doing homework. It was time. Harry muttered the password to the Fat Lady and came through the Portrait Hole with Draco behind him, making a special effort to make some noise so as not to startle her.

Hermione looked up, and stared at them. "Harry – why is he here?"

"You said you wanted to see. You can't make any sort of judgement, you see, without any evidence. So you wanted to see us. It was you who wanted to know." Harry's voice was hard and gritty, a voice that still startled Hermione every time she heard it and remembered her softly-spoken friend. "Take out your wand. Cast the spell. Asioporiasis, you remember. Cast it!" He raised his voice when she stood and did nothing, mouth slightly open. Draco grabbed Harry's wrist, and at length Hermione cast the spell. Threads of light in many colours weaved around and between them.

"You know what this spell is. You know what this means." A fine silver chain wrapped around their waists, shackling them together irrevocably. Another thread, red this time, ran between them and lit them up so they seemed to glow in the coloured light.

"You've...you've – what have you done?" She said, staring at the threads as though they frightened her. "_Why?_" But there was no point, because she knew what they'd done.

"Because he was dying Granger!" Draco spoke for the first time, and his voice was thick and harsh. "He was dying and I didn't know what to do. Because I love him."

Even Harry started. "You...he..." Hermione said, staring between them, horrified.

"Not like that, Granger." Draco saved quickly, realising he had no idea whether Harry wanted anyone to know what the were. What they had done.

"You don't need to lie." Harry interjected. "We have nothing to hide."

There was no time for are-you-sures. Draco dropped Harry's wrist and allowed the chain to pull them into an embrace. The threads disappeared. They were still there, invisible, but just as tangible. Harry kissed Draco on the forehead.

"All right, Granger. I love him. Every way there is."

"B-but you – you _can't_, you – I told you he was a b-bad influence, Harry!" She seemed to find her voice."You shouldn't have let you cast that spell; it's affected your mind! Don't you know he was the one who poisoned you? And he's only using you to get back into power in Slytherin?"

There was a silence. Draco began to get worried – Harry should be shouting or casting scary spells by now. That he wasn't didn't reassure Draco in the slightest. Then he laughed. "Take advantage of me? Goodness. My little schemer all grown up." Draco snorted. He could see that they had left Granger behind; she was frowning at them in consternation.

"He tried to kill you! He's no better than his father!" And suddenly Harry did get angry. Draco was used to Harry's wild mood swings, but he could see it was frightening Granger.

"I would have died, Hermione! I would have died if he hadn't saved me," Harry shouted. "The spell didn't do anything I didn't want." Draco could almost hear her rationalisations.

"You _can't_ make a Power-bond with Malfoy," she insisted.

"Why not?" Draco inquired. "Is this some obscure wizarding law I haven't heard of?"

She glared at him. "You haven't – oh God, tell me you haven't finished it!" Harry shook his head, and she seemed to collapse with relief. Then her expression turned sympathetic. "Oh, Harry – I can help you, you know – I think I can break it. You'd feel much better if you'd just let me help you!"

Harry's expression turned to stone. Draco's eyes flicked from Harry's determined face to Hermione's frightened one. "Don't do it, Granger," he said, swiftly moving in front of Harry.

"This whole thing is just your scheme to get back into Slytherin and V-Voldemort's favour!" Draco's eyes flicked to Harry's, worried.

"Granger, Harry can take care of him––Harry, don't!" He dived in front of Hermione, having no idea what he was doing but knowing that if Harry did what his magic wanted he'd regret it. The air thickened and sparked. "Harry, do you want to kill us?" Draco shouted, and the spell, whatever it had been, stopped abruptly. A bottle of ink, then a window shattered at the sudden release of tension. Harry and Draco both staggered a bit, reeling from the shock of their struggle.

Hermione managed to find her voice. "W-what was that?" she said, numbly.

Harry took one look at her scared face and fell into Draco. "I'm sorry, Draco, I'm so sorry," He whispered over and over, his head buried in the space between Draco's neck and shoulder. Draco's hand came up and he combed his fingers through Harry's hair.

"She's got it wrong, you know, Harry," said Draco. "You're the one in control. Always have been."

Hermione felt extremely out of place witnessing such an intensely personal moment, something the rest of the world would never believe. They joined in a soft kiss, and there was no doubt anymore. They locked eyes, obviously communicating something that was not meant for her to hear. Harry left, letting Draco's hand go only reluctantly. Draco turned and faced Hermione.

"I don't think you want to know, Granger, how close we were to disaster." She looked at him askance. "Merlin, I was tempted to just let him turn the common room to rubble. But I don't want him doing something he'll regret if I can prevent it." Harry – reduce the room to rubble? What sort of spell had it been? And how powerful was Harry really? "I'm talking to you because I don't want Harry to get hurt. Easiest way to make Harry really angry? Insult me. Insult us. You're lucky today, that I care about Harry more than I care about the shit you were flinging at us."

Hermione stared, unable to quite believe the words coming from the unpleasant Slytherin's mouth. Did Harry see something – a softness, a light, something other than icy arrogance – that she couldn't? Could he be trusted at all? She thought back on what she had seen, the look on Harry's face that she'd thought she'd never see again. That she had no idea how to evoke. That made her worry for Harry even more. "How did you do it?" She whispered.

"Do what?" Draco looked at her oddly.

"We tried – we tried so hard to get him to talk to us. To make him happy again..."

He gave her a look that was almost pitying. "It was easy, Granger. I fell in love with him."

She stared. "Oh my God, you actually––"

"I told you. In a way. You wouldn't see it. You didn't want to see it."

"I didn't believe you. I'm still not sure I believe you." She paused. "Look, Malfoy, I'm just worried about Harry."

"Hasn't done either of you much good, has it?" He said, and of course the wretched boy was right, and Ron was right, it hadn't, but what else could she do?

She pursed her lips."What _kind_ of power-bond spell?"

He took one look at her, and burst out laughing. She started, unused to the odd concept of Malfoy laughing – a sneering, mocking laugh, directed just at her. "Granger, you're such a prude. That's your way of asking have we––"

"Shut up, Malfoy! Harry wouldn't. Not with you. I told him, over and over, not to trust you."

"You want to hear though, don't you? You want to know what it feels like when I kiss him, what he tastes like, where we've done it, how many times, whether we've actually _fucked_ cause, Merlin, I've wanted to,"

"I don't want to hear your foul little lies!" Hermione shuddered, and tried to erase his words from her mind.

Draco smiled sharply. "You really don't like reality, do you, Granger?" She felt like spluttering, of course I do... "You're going to have to accept the fact that Harry's in a relationship that doesn't involve you, we're both guys, and yes, at some point we're going to fuck." She couldn't formulate an answer to this. "Wasn't that a nice trip into the real world, Granger? You can go back now – I'm sure it was quite nice where you came from." He turned round, and disappeared into thin air.

SSSSSSS

"Harry, you're mean. The poor girl's probably wondering what on earth happened." Harry's expression turned impish, and Draco couldn't help but smile at his Slytherin _shadenfreud_.

"C'mere Draco. You think I didn't hear what you told Hermione," Harry said, his mouth quirking into something like a smile. "You shouldn't have said all that to me, you idiot." Draco found himself pulled into a hungry kiss. "This is what you wanted, isn't it?" Harry murmured against his lips.

"Yes," Draco whispered as Harry's mouth trailed down his neck, nipping here and there at the soft flesh. Harry stopped at the nape of his neck, then bit down into the soft skin above his collarbone, and Draco's shaking breath turned into a broken gasp. "You trying to mark me, Harry?" He circled the bite mark with his tongue, then kissed and and came back up to find Draco's mouth again.

Draco found himself pushed back onto Harry's bed, and his shirt was removed. He shuddered as Harry's hands wandered all over his chest, and reached up to remove Harry's shirt. "I meant what I said, Harry. I want you. I want you, Harry," Draco managed, his breathing coming fast and shallow. Harry grinned and began to kiss his way down Draco's chest.

Draco's breath hitched as Harry found a nipple, circled it with his tongue, then bit down hard enough to leave a mark. He reached down to undo Draco's belt and fly, then slipped his trousers and boxers down. Draco couldn't help but shiver, though he didn't know whether it was the cold or the shiver that always ran through him at Harry's touch, as though his body was an instrument and Harry a masterful musician.

Breathy gasps became moans when Harry took him in a warm, callused palm and moved his hand, languidly at first but then faster, and Draco latched onto Harry's shoulder in an effort to muffle the sounds that came unbidden from his throat. Then, in a rush of painful stars and hot blood, he reached a peak and fell shuddering down the other side into Harry's comforting grasp. Had Draco looked, he would have seen a satisfied smile, but when he heard a low vibration of content, like the purring of a wildcat, he knew, and was content to close his eyes and revel in Harry's embrace.

SSSSSSS

There was a familiar sight in the Common Room when Ron came in: Hermione sitting, surrounded by a pile of books. Ron smiled, but on closer inspection he realised there was something wrong. Hermione's eyes were red and puffy, and she was staring vacantly at _101_ _Defensive __Charms _ instead of absorbing it. He sighed, and sat down.

"Ron," she said.

"What's up?" He asked. He didn't know if she'd tell looked at him for a moment, then burst into tears.

"Everything's going wrong..." she said between sobs. "And I've tried to make it better, b-but I _can't_, and I – I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing anymore."

Hesitantly, Ron put a hand on her shoulder, half expecting her to shove him off. Instead, she leaned in and buried her head in his shoulder, shoulders still shuddering thought about asking what had happened, but supposed she would tell him anyway. She was like that – into sharing. Or had been. At length, she sat up and blew her nose.

"I didn't mean to to that," she said, looking embarrassed. "It's just – promise you won't get too upset," He looked at her red eyes and thought that if Hermione thought it was something to get upset about, then it was something worth getting upset about. "Please, Ron," she continued. "For Harry." Ron's lips thinned, but he nodded. "Well. I suppose I should have told you before, shouldn't I? But it wasn't my secret to tell – oh, I don't know!" She stopped, and composed herself. "Well. Harry and Malfoy are – have been for a while – friends."

Ron stared. "Friends?" He couldn't say anything else. It was as if someone had completely winded him, and his head was spinning. "Like – like Harry and I used to be?" He asked quietly, once his voice came back, afraid of what Hermione might say.

"No." She said. "It's more than that, I don't know how to...well. They've cast a magical bond spell.

"What _kind _of power-bond? You don't just cast those spells willy-nilly, you know," he said, frowning.

"I told him I told Harry not to trust Malfoy, and-and he ended up half-dead in the Hospital Wing, and I told Harry I would find a way to break it, and it would all be better, b-but––"

Ron cut her off. "Have you _any_ idea what you're suggesting? If-if Harry and Malfoy are," he took a breath "bonded, than that's it. You don't break a bond like that." He uttered a belief so fundamental to being a wizard that it had seemed to be deep in his bones, and he'd known without anyone ever having to tell him.

She looked at him. "I know. Oh, I can't believe I've been so _stupid: _I said some things...well, I know now – I didn't know what I was talking about, but I looked in the library."

Ron grinned despite the situation. Same old Hermione.

"And – did you know neither of them can get married? It's the same sort of thing, and if you add...well..." Hermione stopped.

Ron looked at her as it slowly dawned on him what had happened. "Oh. That kind."

"But it's so stupid! I mean, we can't possibly trust Malfoy, not after all that's happened in Slytherin, and Harry being poisoned and, Ron, what if it's just to make Harry trust him? What if Malfoy's a Death Eater, or becomes one?"

Ron asked her to explain what she meant.

She said, Harry had been poisoned with a Wasting Draught.

He spent a week in the Hopsital Wing. Yes, he's all right now.

Yes, you're right: he could have died.

Malfoy cast the spell.

Yes, but he was talking to Nott about a coup in Slytherin.

And it was probably him who poisoned Harry.

No, I can't be sure. But do you really want to take that chance?

They said they hadn't finished it – but I don't know, now.

Yes, I know, Harry can be so reckless sometimes.

Ron took a breath. "I can see why you're worried, Hermione. But how can Malfoy betray Harry? It would kill him."

"I don't know. But I wouldn't put anything past the son of Lucius Malfoy." Hermione, he noticed, seemed much calmer now she had all the facts in front of her in an orderly fashion.

"You should have said something. You can't keep it all to yourself all the time." She nodded, and leaned against him.

"Can we pretend that everything's okay? Just for a while?" Her face was almost pleading. He couldn't do anything else when she looked at him like that.

"Okay, Hermione. It'll all turn out right in the end, anyway." He said.

Suddenly, Ron understood why she'd lied to him about Harry. Why she'd told him Harry would be all right, and kept all her worries to herself. It was much easier than adding to their burden. Ron held Hermione close, and worried about Ginny and Hermione instead.

SSSSSSS

"Theodore." Blaise was lying languidly along a low sofa in the common room when Theo walked in.

"Mmm?" He continued on the way to his bedroom, hoping Blaise would let him go.

"Sit down. I thought we should have a catchup. We haven't talked properly in _so long_," Blaise's smirk did nothing to assuage Theo's panic. He stopped, but did not sit. "I don't even know where you are, what you're doing...or who you're seeing, these days." Blaise sat up, his smirk widening.

"Well, I know who _you've_ been seeing. That Weasley girl." Theo couldn't keep the anger from his voice, though he couldn't exactly say why he was angry at her.

"You don't approve?" Blaise's smile betrayed amusement.

"Of course not. She's a Gryffindor and a Weasley." That was important – but not, Theo realised, the real reason he didn't want Blaise with Ginny.

Blaise laughed shortly. "I'm not going to marry the girl, or anything. She's a good fuck, but she does get awfully dull when she opens her mouth. I prefer her on her back." He made an obscene gesture, amused by his own cleverness. Theo suppressed a surge of hot rage gathering in his chest. "But we were talking about you. And I don't approve of who you've been seeing – a certain Draco Malfoy?" Blaise stood up suddenly, and his left hand twitched as though he was reaching for his wand. Theo's blood ran cold. "There's only, I suppose, two reasons to see that sorry excuse for Slytherin. If he's fucking you I want you to stop – and I hope, Thee, that you haven't turned traitor on me. That would be unpleasant for both of us."

Theo looked up from the sofa and glared. "What else could I do, Blaise? You're ruining this House!" He spat.

"House pride? Touching. But that's not why you did it. You're jealous of the Weasley girl, jealous because of _me_, so you go to Draco. Did I mention I had him too? He was good, Thee, but I think...I think you could be better." Blaise moved and slammed him against the wall in one swift movement, suddenly furious.

"What the hell are you doing?" Theo tried to shout, but it came out breathless instead.

Blaise smashed his lips against Theo's in a bruising, suffocating kiss, and Theo had to fight back, had to kiss back, otherwise he would be crushed. Blaise smirked into the kiss, and shoved his tongue into Theo's mouth.

Theo could feel his legs begin to shake, and Blaise pushed closer, grinding his bony hips against Theo's, keeping him standing by sheer force of will. He wasn't sure, and then – somehow his robes and shirt and belt were in a pile on the floor, Blaise's hands were all over him making him shudder and shake. Then those hands were at his waistband, undoing his jeans, pulling his jeans and boxers down his legs to bunch around his ankles.

Blaise bit down hard into Theo's neck as he stripped himself, and Theo held back a groan made deep in his throat as liquid, blood, trickled down his chest and shoulder. Blaise pushed close again, hoisting Theo's legs around his hips, and Theo knew with terrifying certainty what he wanted.

"You want this, Thee. You always did – you've always wanted _me_." Blaise said insistently, and pushed into him. Theo cried out in pain, and then, and then...he didn't know, but the involuntary sounds came from his throat just the same. Blaise's fingernails dug painfully into his thighs, and he gave in and wrapped his arms around Blaise's neck, afraid he would drop to the ground and not have the will to get up. He closed his eyes and buried his face in Blaise's shoulder, pretending he was resting in his old friend's embrace like he had used to.

Blaise's groans and his own muffled cries came faster, and he squeezed his eyes shut against the overwhelming rush of feelings and sensations he couldn't begin to control.

Blaise held Theo' face gently, wiping the tears from his skin.. "That's why you did it, isn't it? For this." He gave him a soft kiss, and another, then withdrew and left. When he had gone, Theo's knees gave out, and he sank to the floor.


End file.
